Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer whose combative reign in Hollywood made him an Academy Awards regular, was on Sunday fired from the Weinstein Company following an expose that detailed decades of sexual harassment allegations made against Weinstein by actresses and employees.
In a statement, the company’s board of directors announced his firing, capping the swift downfall of one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers and expelling him from the company he cofounded.
“In light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days, the directors of the Weinstein Company — Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar — have determined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with the Weinstein Company is terminated, effective immediately,” the company’s board said in a statement.
Weinstein had previously taken an indefinite leave of absence following the revelation of at least eight allegations of sexual harassment uncovered on Thursday in an expose by the New York Times.
The board on Friday endorsed that decision and announced an investigation into the allegations, saying it would determine the cochairman’s future with the company.
However, the board, which includes Weinstein’s brother, went further on Sunday, firing the executive who has always been its primary operator, public face and studio chief.
Under his leadership, the company has been a dominant force at the Oscars, including the rare feat of winning back-to-back best picture Academy Awards with The King’s Speech and The Artist.
However, Weinstein’s status has diminished in recent years because of money shortages, disappointing box-office returns and executive departures.
Weinstein on Thursday issued a lengthy statement that acknowledged causing “a lot of pain.”
He also asked for “a second chance.”
However, Weinstein and his lawyers also criticized the New York Times’ report in statements and interviews, and vowed an aggressive response.
The New York Times said it was “confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”
The article chronicled sexual harassment settlements Weinstein made with film star Ashley Judd and former employees at both the Weinstein Company and Weinstein’s former company, Miramax.
Weinstein made his name with Miramax, the company he founded with his brother, Robert, in 1979.
They sold it to Disney in 1993 for US$60 million.
The company was a fixture of the 1990s independent film movement, launching the careers of filmmakers Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Steven Soderbergh, and winning best picture with Shakespeare in Love and The English Patient.
The allegations triggered cascading chaos at the Weinstein Company. Numerous members of its all-male board have stepped down since Thursday.
The prominent attorney Lisa Bloom, daughter of well-known Los Angeles women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, on Saturday withdrew from representing Weinstein, as did another adviser, Lanny Davis.
Pressure to act continued to mount on the board as more developments followed.
US Congressional Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and US Senator Elizabeth Warren, donated to charities thousands of US dollars in donations they had received from Weinstein.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion