7 Famous People Who Gave It To Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist who seemingly never met a woman who couldn't sexually assault or otherwise harass. He's the subhuman equivalent of the diarrhea that follows a breakfast of off-brand gas-station beef jerky. If news broke that Harvey Weinstein subsisted entirely on an intravenous slurry made of poisoned well water, orphan meat, and the unwashed assholes of diseased jungle rats, we doubt anyone would be surprised.
Anyway, it's easy to forget that this, Our Year of Perpetual Nightmares, actually started with the good news that Weinstein was, finally, going to jail. Not for as long as many of us would have cared for, but still. Something resembling justice was served. Somehow -- well, not somehow, the obvious answer is patriarchy and power -- Weinstein's litany of despicable wrongdoings went unnoticed for years. Except, of course, for these paragons of virtue that had the good sense to absolutely fucking hate him all along.
James Gandolfini Wanted to Beat the Shit Out of Him
Recently, on the Joe Rogan Experience, Sopranos stars Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli gathered to reminisce about the show and the late James Gandolfini -- and, specifically, about how God damned much Gandolfini hated Harvey Weinstein.
See, despite his fame, Gandolfini never appeared on talk shows, because, in a move all self-hating New Jerseyans can understand, he didn't feel that he was interesting enough. But Harvey, as we all now well know, wasn't a fan of the word "no." So he kept calling Gandolfini, trying to get him on The Late Show With David Letterman to promote the Weinstein-produced Killing Them Softly.
Things, according to Schirripa, took a turn for the "fucking nasty," until Harvey's constant pestering (and, we have to assume, incessant insulting and/or threatening of the actor) broke poor Tony Soprano. "I will beat the fuck out of Harvey Weinstein!" Gandolfini was reported to have said. "He fucking calls me again, I will beat the fuck out of him! For the money he paid me, I'm not fucking doing it!"
It does not appear that Gandolfini ever actually did beat the fuck out of Weinstein, though, and the world feels poorer for it.
Studio Ghibli Once Gave Him a Samurai Sword (and Not as a Gift)
Before he was outed as a rapist and sex criminal, Weinstein's major claim to infamy was his proclivity for cutting the holy crap out of a movie. He was so overzealous in the editing bay, in fact, that his nickname around old Hollywood town was "Harvey Scissorhands."
You know who really hates having his movies edited? Hayao Miyazaki, director of Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke. And once he found out that Weinstein had picked up American distribution for the film, things apparently got "confrontational." Miyazaki claims to have been "bombarded" with demands for cuts, all of which he refused, until Weinstein descended into classic movie-villain tropes and threatened that Miyazaki would never work in the industry again.
Miyazaki related the incident to producer Toshio Suzuki. Suzuki then went to an unnamed local sword shop -- a "small, hard-to-find store in Tokyo" that made prop swords for samurai films -- and picked up the most realistic katana he could find. Taking the sword with him to New York, Suzuki apparently walked into a conference room full of Miramax employees and then just handed the sword to Weinstein -- but not before shouting "Mononoke Hime, NO CUT!" right into his (allegedly) stupid face.
It was a sentiment that, according to some sources, at least, was also engraved on the blade. And it seemed to work. Weinstein left Princess Mononoke alone. Well, uncut, anyway. It's rumored that the film's limited American theatrical release was specifically a result of Harvey's grudge against the studio. Still, of the incident, Miyazaki later said, "I defeated him," and, I mean, we're not about to argue with the man.
Brad Pitt Literally Threatened to Kill Him
In 1995 -- back when "according to Gwyneth Paltrow" wasn't immediately followed by a refutation of the efficacy of vagina eggs -- Paltrow was cast as the lead in Miramax's Emma, a huge professional win for the twenty-two-year-old actress.
But then, because there's nothing that he can't turn to festering shit, Harvey Weinstein did what Harvey Weinstein (allegedly) does and, according to Paltrow, cornered her in a hotel room, placing his hands on her and suggesting they retire to the bedroom for a massage. We shouldn't need to say this, but it was a wholly unwanted advance.
Escaping from the producer's clutches, Paltrow told her then-boyfriend, some schlub named Brad Pitt, about the incident. The actor did not take things well. Pitt, regressing to his Ozarks roots, confronted Weinstein about what happened -- by which we mean he got in Harvey's face outside of a movie premiere and said, "If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I'll kill you."
Courtney Love's Been Warning People About Him Since 2005
Back in 2017, a video surfaced from back in 2005, when Courtney Love was being interviewed on the red carpet for the Pamela Anderson Comedy Central Roast, because the early 2000s were a wild time. In the video, Love is asked if she has any advice for aspiring actresses. Her answer? Stay the fuck away from Harvey Weinstein. She declines to get into further details, fearing for her career, but, according to her, that one shot across the bow was enough. Love claims to have been blacklisted by the Creative Artists Agency, the preeminent talent agency in Hollywood, all for daring to warn young women about the sexually-predatory behaviors of a now-convicted sexual predator.
Bong Joon-Ho Lied, Embarrassed Him to Get a "Director's Cut"
Before Bong Joon-ho was the Academy Award-winning director of Parasite, he was the acclaimed director of Okja, The Host and, more importantly for this entry, Snowpiercer. Despite starring none other than Chris Evans, Snowpiercer was a South Korean-Czech co-production. After a couple of acclaimed festival appearances, Miramax picked up the international distribution rights. Maybe you can see where this is going.
Bong immediately found himself going head-to-head with Harvey Scissorhands. Weinstein adamantly wanted more action and less dialogue, requesting cut after cut until Bong literally got a headache from talking to him. So the director started to get creative. When Weinstein requested that a particular shot of fish-gutting -- one that Bong and his cinematographer were exceptionally proud of -- Bong straight-up lied. He said that his father was a fisherman and the shot had significant sentimental value to him. Harvey bought it; the shot stayed.
Though hopefully his fishing methods were a bit more conventional.
Still, Bong couldn't lie his way out of every cut, and an "incoherent" Weinstein edit was allowed to premiere for a test audience in New Jersey. They hated it. Harvey's solution was even more edits. Bong, though, pointed out a clause in his distribution contract that allowed him to test-drive his version. Sure enough, the audience sided with Bong Joon-ho's original edit. Harvey, tail bitterly between his legs, relented and let the "director's cut" get distributed. Weinstein was still (allegedly) petty as shit and "punished" Snowpiercer by knocking it from a wide release to a limited one, but whatever. Bong didn't care, and Snowpiercer is awesome.
Even Kevin Smith Can't Stand Him Anymore
Kevin Smith, nerd god and director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and that movie where Justin Long gets turned into a walrus, has made no bones about the fact that he owes his entire career to Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. He's also been very vocal about the fact that Weinstein absolutely and completely sucks.
Smith recently revealed that Weinstein refused to pay him royalties after acquiring Clerks in 1994. Being young and trusting, the Jersey slacker waited seven years to bring the issue up, kind of just believing that the three-million-dollar grossing indie hit he made by maxing out his credit cards wasn't turning a profit. Things didn't exactly get better after that. In 2011, at the Sundance premiere of Red State, instead of watching his protege's movie -- y'know, the thing he was specifically and personally invited there to do -- Weinstein apparently spent the first seven minutes of the film talking "loud as fuck" about the New York Jets. This prompted eternal nice guy Smith to scream "Shut the fuck up!" in his face. They didn't talk much after that.
Smith has claimed that he didn't know anything about what Harvey got up to behind closed doors, but, now that he does, he can't stop calling his former mentor out for it. During filming of the as-yet-unreleased documentary Clerk, Smith actually requested they add a new interview solely for the purpose of shitting all over the sentient Hefty bag of cockroaches and rotting produce that is Harvey Weinstein.
And, honestly, who can blame Smith? According to him, Weinstein, in the days immediately before his public reckoning, well aware that his comeuppance was upcoming, reached out to Smith, trying to win his old friend over to his side right before all the shit went down. I mean, that's gotta sting. Honestly, who could possibly feel more betrayed than that? Oh, right ...
ALL OF THE WOMEN
Look, let's not forget that, above all else, Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist and a sexual predator, with literally dozens of accusations leveled against him. He's ruined careers and countless lives with his actions. We could start listing names, but relegating the suffering of these women to a who's who of the victimized feels shitty -- especially on a website that once published a list of the greatest farts in history -- so maybe head over to the Time's Up Foundation to help the survivors instead.
But why bring up Weinstein at all, six months into this year sent straight from the impacted bowels of Hell, after he's finally been sentenced? The reasoning, dear reader, is threefold.
1) As a reminder that Harvey Weinstein is, was, and always will be a bad human being.
2) As a reminder to believe women.
3) As a reminder that, even with all of the star power above, even with all of the terrible things that people knew Weinstein did and was doing, it still took thirty fucking years for even a modicum of the justice due to actually be served -- thanks, largely, to the American criminal justice system being a tasty melange of corruption, cowardice, misogyny, white supremacy and Flaming Hot Cheeto shits that only barely functions when we force it to. So if we want any other slug-like amalgamations of oppression and undeserved power to finally get choked out by the women they've assaulted, we all really need to get our shit together.
Top image: Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock
