“We are at a moment when powerful people are able to subvert the media, law and the free press,” Farrow says on “Good Morning America”
Ronan Farrow suggested Friday morning while promoting his forthcoming book, “Catch and Kill,” that NBC News discouraged him to pursue reporting on accusations against Harvey Weinstein because of its own internal sexual harassment incidents.
The company ordered a “hard stop to reporting,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” He continued, “They told me and a producer working on this that we should lot take a single call. They told us to cancel interviews. The question for years has been, ‘Why?’ because every journalist at that institution didn’t understand why. And I think the book answers that question. This was a company with a lot of secrets.”
He also spoke about Weinstein’s reaction to being reported on, saying the movie mogul “made it known to the network that he was aware of [Matt] Lauer’s behavior and capable of revealing it.”
“Harvey Weinstein hired former Mossad agents with a firm called Black Cube who in turn hired contractors who surveilled me, tracked me, built dossiers on both me and survivors of alleged assault by Harvey Weinstein to try to squash this story,” Farrow said, reiterating the details of excerpts published earlier this week.
Farrow told Stephanopoulos that he’d been advised by sources to buy a gun and had been forced to move out of his home.
“I say all this and report it in detail in the book not to be ‘woe is me,’ but to illustrate the threats to the free press in this country. We are at a moment when powerful people are able to subvert the media, law and the free press and that is a threat to our democracy,” he explained.
“Around the world, the stakes are even higher: journalists get killed for reporting stories,” he added. “It’s gotta stop and we have to protect this precious institution.”
In a statement sent to TheWrap last year, Weinstein attorney Ben Brafman said he had met with federal attorneys and assured them that Weinstein hired Black Cube solely to “to effectively defend himself through legal action from serious and patently false allegations.” Brafman also said that Black Cube was supervised by lawyers based in New York and Los Angeles whom Weinstein “believed would never have authorized illegal activity of any kind.”
Weinstein also denied pressuring NBC News over Farrow’s reporting by threatening to reveal allegations against Matt Lauer, which has also been reported by Farrow in book excerpts.
“Harvey says that there is absolutely nothing factual about that account and he never did anything of the sort,” a representative for Weinstein told TheWrap Thursday.
Harvey Weinstein Scandal: A Timeline of a Hollywood Mogul's Downfall (Photos)
Harvey Weinstein was once the king of the indie film world. But the Oscar-winning producer’s career and reputation have imploded since fall 2017, when scores of women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Here’s a breakdown of what happened.
OCTOBER 5, 2017
The New York Times published a story revealing that Harvey Weinstein had paid financial settlements to at least eight women accusing him of sexual harassment or assault. Actress Ashley Judd is the only accuser to go on the record, accusing the mogul of assault in his hotel room. In a statement, Weinstein apologizes, vows to take a self-imposed leave of absence from his company and bizarrely declares war on the NRA.
OCTOBER 6, 2017
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and other politicians donate campaign contributions they received from Weinstein to charity.
OCTOBER 8, 2017
Weinstein is fired as CEO from The Weinstein Company.
OCTOBER 10, 2017
The New Yorker publishes its own piece, written by Ronan Farrow, in which three women, including Italian actress Asia Argento, accuse Weinstein of rape. Through a spokesperson, Weinstein denies any account of nonconsensual sex.
Hours after the article runs, the New York Times publishes on-the-record accusations of inappropriate behavior from Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.
Weinstein’s wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, announces their separation.
OCTOBER 11, 2017
BAFTA suspends Weinstein’s membership. AMPAS holds a special meeting to consider consequences for Weinstein’s “repugnant” actions.
OCTOBER 12, 2017
The NYPD and London’s Metro Police both launch criminal investigations of Weinstein. On social media, Rose McGowan accuses Weinstein of raping her. (He has consistently denied engaging in nonconsensual sex.)
OCTOBER 13, 2017
Director Quentin Tarantino, arguably Weinstein’s greatest discovery, says he is “heartbroken” by the scandal. A petition to expel Weinstein from AMPAS passes 100,000 signatures.
OCTOBER 14, 2017
The AMPAS Board of Governors expels Weinstein. The Weinstein Company’s development slate falls apart, losing projects with David O. Russell and more. Release of Benedict Cumberbatch’s “The Current War” is delayed.
OCTOBER 15, 2017
Actress Alyssa Milano kicks off a cultural movement by encouraging women to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault on social media. She asks them to tag the stories #MeToo.
OCTOBER 16, 2017
The Producers Guild of America votes unanimously to terminate Weinstein’s membership.
OCTOBER 17, 2017
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy vows to start an industry-wide commission to create “protections against harassment and abuse.” Frequent Weinstein collaborator and filmmaker Kevin Smith vows to donate all of his Weinstein Company residuals to Women in Film.
OCTOBER 25, 2017
The Taylor Sheridan film “Wind River,” which had a successful release by the Weinstein Company in August, excises the Weinstein name from its home video and streaming releases. Principal financier Acadia Entertainment buys the film back from TWC and self-funds an awards campaign. (It doesn’t land any Oscar nominations.)
NOVEMBER 6, 2017
The Television Academy bans Weinstein for life. The New Yorker runs a follow-up piece saying a battery of former Mossad agents and communications experts were used to silence stories of Weinstein’s impropriety for years.
NOVEMBER 15, 2017
TWC is hit with a class-action lawsuit from several of Weinstein’s accusers. The company is forced to sell its live-action “Paddington 2” to Warner Bros. to help infuse the studio with cash and keep the doors open.
DECEMBER 6, 2017
The Academy announces its “standards of conduct,” which read, in part, “The Academy is categorically opposed to any form of abuse, harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, age, religion, or nationality.”
JANUARY 1, 2018
#TimesUp is born as four female talent agents from CAA create a legal defense fund for women in the U.S. workforce to protect them from sexual harassment. The effort is announced and endorsed by contributors like Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Fox Film head Stacey Snider, Fox TV honcho Dana Walden, Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey, among others.
JANUARY 7
To draw attention to the mistreatment of women in Hollywood, virtually all women attending the Golden Globes wear black.
JANUARY 8
Immediately after he wins a Golden Globe wearing a #TimesUp pin, James Franco is accused of sexual misconduct by several women. The accusations, which the actor denies, come in the middle of the Oscar nomination voting period.
JANUARY 9
Lady Bird writer-director Greta Gerwig joins Mira Sorvino, Chloe Sevigny and others in saying she would not work in the future with director Woody Allen, who had been accused of sexual assault by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow. (He has repeatedly denied the accusation.)
JANUARY 10, 2018
Page Six reports that Weinstein and Chapman reached the terms of an eight-figure divorce settlement, with Chapman securing primary custody of the couple’s two children.
JANUARY 27, 2018
The Academy emails members to reveal the process by which violations of its code of conduct can be reported.
FEBRUARY 6, 2018
“I may be a 75-year-old white male,” says Academy President John Bailey at the annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon, “but I’m as gratified as any of you that the fossilized bedrock of many of Hollywood’s worst abuses [is] being jackhammered into oblivion.” (One month later, the Academy would investigate — and then dismiss — accusations of sexual harassment against Bailey himself.)
FEBRUARY 8, 2018
Los Angeles police send three sexual assault cases concerning Weinstein to the city’s district attorney for possible charges.
MARCH 19, 2018
The Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, reporting that it had less than $500,000 in cash on hand. Dallas-based Lantern Capital Partners stepped up as a stalking horse bidder prepared to buy virtually all of the company’s assets for $310 million.
MAY 8, 2018
Despite a last-minute bid from Broadway producer Howard Kagan’s Inclusion Media, a Delaware bankruptcy judge approves Lantern Capital’s purchase of The Weinstein Company’s assets.
MAY 25, 2018
Following a months-long investigation by the NYPD, Weinstein is arrested on three felony charges of rape and criminal sex act in connection with two female accusers. Weinstein pleads not guilty and released on $1 million bail pending trial.
MAY 30, 2018
Weinstein is indicted on charges of rape in the first and third degrees, as well as on charges of criminal sexual act in the first degree, as announced by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Then on June 1, Three women filed additional charges against Weinstein in a class action lawsuit, saying that Weinstein isolated the women “in an attempt to engage in unwanted sexual conduct that took many forms: flashing, groping, fondling, harassing, battering, false imprisonment, sexual assault and attempted rape, and/or completed rape.”
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JULY 2, 2018
A grand jury served Weinstein with three more sexual assault charges, an additional count of criminal sexual act in the first degree for forcing a woman to have sex with him in 2006, and two counts of predatory sexual assault. The latter charge carries a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of a life sentence. Weinstein would plead not guilty.
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AUGUST 3, 2018
Weinstein made a push to have a New York judge toss out a criminal sexual assault case brought against him, saying in a filing that the Manhattan district attorney “failed to provide the Grand Jury with exculpatory evidence of the long-term, consensual, intimate relationship between Mr. Weinstein and the alleged rape victim.”
AUGUST 19, 2018
A report in the New York Times said Asia Argento paid a settlement of $380,000 to actor Jimmy Bennett after accusing her of sexually assaulting him when he was just 17. Argento denied the accusations. Rose McGowan distanced herself from Argento, and Weinstein issued a statement saying Argento displayed a “stunning level of hypocrisy.” “The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty,” the statement continued.
AUGUST 30, 2018
Former NBC News producer Richard McHugh said that people at “the very highest levels of NBC” worked to quash Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein story that eventually published in The New Yorker. Then on Sept. 3, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack sent an internal memo saying that after eight months, Farrow’s reporting “did not have a single victim or witness willing to go on the record.” Farrow disputed the memo and said NBC’s list of sources was incomplete.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2018
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York opened an investigation into Weinstein’s involvement with the private spy firm Black Cube to see if he violated any federal wire fraud laws. Weinstein had hired Black Cube to gather information on those accusing him of sexual assault.
A blow-by-blow look at how the indie mogul’s career and reputation unraveled
Harvey Weinstein was once the king of the indie film world. But the Oscar-winning producer’s career and reputation have imploded since fall 2017, when scores of women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Here’s a breakdown of what happened.
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