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Episode 10: Free-ee Harvey My Fella!
60 Plays1 month ago
The boys are back—and it’s our 10th episode (yes, we’re retconning 8.5 to 9, don’t worry about it).
This week, long-time Weinstein truther Biccy breaks down the 2020 New York trial that lit the fuse on #MeToo. With the retrial now in full swing, we dive into what really went down—from botched testimony to media hysteria—as Biccy does his best to redpill Q on Hollywood’s most hated man.
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Transcript
Podcast Return and White Lotus Nostalgia
00:00:36
Speaker
I need to, um, what do I need? No, I don't need anything. I'm good. Okay, well, we are recording now. Okay. Hi, guys. Welcome back to Twink Death. It's been a while.
00:00:49
Speaker
um We took a little hiatus because we were traumatized by the last episode of White Lotus, maybe. No, we were just being lazy. Yeah, being lazy.
00:00:59
Speaker
Do you want to maybe, like, before we start going into, like, today's discussion do you want to maybe like wrap up the white letters because they obviously finished between our last episode and this one i'm like completely over it i like can't even i couldn't even muster up like i i just am bored i will i wouldn't i'd be bored to talk about it it's so funny how something can like completely take over like the timeline for like weeks and weeks and weeks and then as soon as it's over everyone's just like okay
Lady Gaga and Geography Humor
00:01:28
Speaker
bye.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah I mean I miss the White Lotus timeline takeover because the timeline has been like really bleak and depressing i feel like for weeks now so I do miss everyone very sort of focused but today there's sort of some fun stuff like Gaga's concert that two million Brazilians went to. Did you hear about that? No I haven't heard about this.
00:01:48
Speaker
Two million Brazilian two million I'm not exaggerating this number. Was it in Brazil? Yeah. Oh, okay. It's like, and it's like we haven't seen that level of like insane celebrities since like Michael Jackson. the the aerial shots of it are insane.
00:02:05
Speaker
i can't even, I can't even like conceptualize 2 million people. I mean, obviously like, like many, many of them were not even near the stage, but basically like she filled the entire, this entire city was all watching like the screens of gaga performing it's like insane that is crazy didn't even know she was that big in brazil i don't know anything about brazil i don't i'm not even confident i could point it out on a map to be honest well it's literally the right half of south america that's why they have the jesus statue on the mountain right i think so the big one
00:02:46
Speaker
It's like half of South America, Vicky, you could point it out. yeah You'd be surprised. The reason Brazil exists is because some Pope at some point drew a line down a poorly made map and said this half of South and more America is for Portugal and this half of South America is for the Spanish.
00:03:07
Speaker
Is Portugal in South America or no? Oh my God, Vicky. What? Portugal's in Europe. Okay, I've been to Portugal. I think why would you you didn't know if you went to South America.
00:03:20
Speaker
no Okay. No, you didn't. Um, and but they, that's why they speak Portuguese in Brazil.
Introduction: Harvey Weinstein Retrial
00:03:27
Speaker
Okay. But Portuguese is like basically the same language, but bit slower. Right.
00:03:33
Speaker
As Spanish. Yeah. No, they're very different. But I feel like people who'd speak Portuguese, they can also speak Spanish. I don't think so. But you can understand, like if you and understand one, you can understand the other.
00:03:45
Speaker
I don't think so. Okay, I don't know where I've heard that. I knew a Portuguese once. I think he told me that. but I think they're like as similar as like Spanish and Italian, for instance. Oh, okay.
00:03:58
Speaker
So like, not super. No, yeah, not very similar. Like maybe they're like as similar as like English and German.
00:04:11
Speaker
yeah well, i'm I'm trying my best to learn German and I'm not. doing very well. Well, it's funny, you should be able to do it because German is the closest English
Weinstein Trial Overview
00:04:20
Speaker
that there is. Are we starting properly?
00:04:23
Speaker
I was going to say we can go ahead and start. I still think it's insane that you weren't sure that Portugal is in Europe. I think if I thought about it for longer than five seconds, I probably could have figured it out my own.
00:04:36
Speaker
Isn't it like a two-hour flight from like Britain? I haven't been since I was a kid, so I'm not really sure. Okay. Well, it is very close. I mean, it's significantly closer than you flying to South America. You flying to South America would be like me flying to Africa.
00:04:50
Speaker
it would be like a 20-hour flight. Yeah, don't even ask me where Africa is. No. No clue. Isn't Tenerife in Africa? Tenerife, did you say?
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah. Tenerife very close to Africa. but It's not called Tenerife. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I go to Tenerife quite regularly because my brother lives there. Yeah.
00:05:15
Speaker
it's It's very, very warm. So I have heard that it's close to Africa, but it's like, i think it's like a Spanish colony. So everyone speaks Spanish. Oh my God. We sound like retarded right now. I think we have retard right now i think you should start the... Well, I'm probably going to start some retarded when we start anyway, but it's fine.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah. So today um we're going to be talking about Harvey Weinstein. um Obviously the retrial in New York is happening at the minute.
00:05:46
Speaker
um And I've been, want to say, first of all, like I've been a Harvey Weinstein truther since like 2020. And I know it's very popular at the moment because Candace Owens has been doing this like deep dive series on her YouTube channel. And obviously the retrial is going on and stuff,
00:06:03
Speaker
But like I was one of the first. I was a Harvey Weinstein truther way before Candace Owens because i i didn't really pay attention to the Los Angeles trial that much, but the New York trial I followed like religiously in 2020.
00:06:19
Speaker
I do want to like plug as well. If anyone is genuinely interested in this subject, there's a really, really good podcast series um called The Harvey Weinstein Trial Unfiltered that you can find on Spotify.
00:06:32
Speaker
And it came out basically like live during the trial. So every day, um the day after they would release an episode where they would have like actors, um, performing verbatim, the testimonies that went on in court.
00:06:47
Speaker
And it's like, i don't know, it's probably like 20 episodes, but it's really, really good. Um, so a lot of my kind of knowledge about the New York case kind of came from that.
00:06:58
Speaker
And I just remember at the time thinking, how the hell have they managed to convict him based on this evidence or like lack thereof? Cause I get that the concept is like, it's supposed to be like beyond reasonable doubt, but like,
00:07:16
Speaker
I've been doubting and I feel like my doubts are way reasonable. So like, I don't know. It does not make sense to me at all that he went to jail. Just quickly clarify, I've read nothing or heard nothing about this on purpose. So the the structure of today's episode is Vicky trying to convince me. my my My opinions of Harvey Weinstein go basically as far as like,
00:07:39
Speaker
I'm assuming he's guilty because like, that just seems to be the general narrative. That's as much as I know. So yeah, I'm not trying to convince Q that like Harvey Weinstein isn't a creep or isn't, um, like a gross manipulative person who like abused his power to get like sex with women.
00:08:02
Speaker
Like all of those things are probably true. And I'm not even necessarily convinced that he has he isn't a rapist, but I am convinced to that they weren't able to prove in court that he raped the women that he was responsible for, supposedly.
00:08:18
Speaker
And we can go into sort of the details as well of like why there even has been a mistrial.
Media Influence and Testimonies
00:08:24
Speaker
um But we're going to go through it sort of like one by one. I've made some like show notes, so I'll get those up.
00:08:31
Speaker
um So, like, tell me, like, basically, do you know, what what do you know about the trial at all, if anything? Okay. So, what I know about the New York trial is that several women, I think it's like, to i let me just, let let's get my impressions from just like, oma like what I've gotten from Osmos.
00:08:51
Speaker
and That's what I want. Okay. Yeah, my impression... So i I probably know slightly more than the average person about the Weinstein thing. So I know that, like, he was accused in general by, like, over 100 women or something of, like, various forms of, like, sexual misconduct. But, like, that there was a huge broad range of, like, stuff from, like, you know, propositioning for sex in what was supposed to ostensibly be business meetings all the way up to rape. That's, like, what I...
00:09:18
Speaker
I'm understanding the accusations consist of, but I know that only a very select few were like prosecutable in like any way, shape or form. And knew that there was a trial in New York and a trial in LA.
00:09:30
Speaker
And what I remember about the New York trial is that a lot of people were saying at the time that it was like a victory for me too, because a lot of these women had also admitted to having like consensual sex with Harvey Weinstein, but and that there was also some instances of rape and that that was, um,
00:09:56
Speaker
And that that was like a victory because like the jury really believed women or whatever. I'm obviously not saying that like you can't theoretically have both a rape experience and a consensual sex experience with the same person, although it does seem odd.
00:10:13
Speaker
um but that's really as far as I've gotten is like, that that's my and basic understanding of like what happened. And I know that like they have to do a retrial because it was like overturned or whatever. So I understand that too.
00:10:26
Speaker
Okay. So I'll go through the list of the women who like testified in court that he'd like sexually assaulted them in some way. And then I'll kind of break it down like, um, in a little bit more detail, sort of one by one.
00:10:40
Speaker
So the first one was Annabella Sciorra, who a lot of, um, the listeners probably know from the Sopranos. I've never actually watched the Sopranos. Um, look up who she is. Keep going.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah. It's good. Look at them all up and like, look at them as well. Cause it's kind of like fun to like, see how hot they were. Um, that's, so that's one of the things I found enjoyable when I was like researching. Um, so she was the first one who testified. Then we had, um, Miriam Haley, who was a former production assistant on project runway. I think she alleged two assaults in 2006.
00:11:15
Speaker
One, that he had forcibly performed oral sex on her at his apartment. And then a second that he'd raped her in a hotel room at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The third one was Jessica This was the other rape allegation. She alleged that he raped her in 2013 at the Double Tree Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
00:11:37
Speaker
And then, where are we? We've got Dawn Dunning. um She ah supposedly met Weinstein in a hotel suite expecting a professional meeting.
00:11:49
Speaker
She claims that he groped her under a skirt and um later presented her with film contracts, offering them in exchange for a threesome. He really, i will say looking all these women up, he really has a type.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah. They're all very similar looking, but yes um the next one was to Raleigh Wolf. She was a cocktail waitress. She says Weinstein um invited her to discuss modeling and she alleged that he masturbated in front of her a club and then raped her in his Manhattan apartment.
Fair Trial Concerns and Annabella Sciorra
00:12:19
Speaker
And then we've also got Lauren Young. um She was a screenwriter who alleged that she met Weinstein at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, that he led her into a bathroom, trapped her and masturbated in front of her while she stood frozen.
00:12:34
Speaker
um our these multiple women who testified at the trial, he was only actually on trial for two of them. So Miriam Haley, um the production assistant, he was on trial for performing oral sex on her. And he was also on trial for raping Jessica Mann.
00:12:56
Speaker
um The other women who testified, this is where it gets very confusing. They were allowed to testify to build up a picture of Weinstein as this sort of predator.
00:13:10
Speaker
um But the jury were kind of told at the beginning, because he was on trial obviously for rape and for sexual assault, but there was also like a third charge of like predatory sexual behavior.
00:13:26
Speaker
And these like multiple women that testified, their testimony was sort supposed to go towards um proving this sort of like pattern of predatory sexual behavior.
00:13:37
Speaker
But the jury were told that they weren't allowed to take that evidence into account when they were judging whether or not he had raped Jessica Mann or sexually assaulted Miriam Haley.
00:13:49
Speaker
they were They were supposed to somehow miraculously forget about all of that when they were making the decision about whether he was guilty of those crimes. And it just, and like, but that's basically the reason why there's a retrial because they were they were arguing that like,
00:14:03
Speaker
in that kind of situation, it's impossible to like separate those two things. Cause he wasn't actually found guilty of predatory sexual behavior charge. He was only found guilty of the rape and the sexual assault.
00:14:16
Speaker
But like as a jury member, like how are you supposed to ignore all of those like other testimonies that you've been told and just look at this like one singular event when you've got all of this like background knowledge of things that supposedly happened with other women, it just doesn't It doesn't seem fair to me. I don't know. I don't know what you think about that.
00:14:38
Speaker
um Okay, so this is my first new piece of information I didn't know. So all these women were allowed to testify simply to create this like pattern. I mean, yeah, it does it obviously does not seem fair. um I don't think there's any way a jury could... like I mean, like if you're charging someone with rape and then you have like 10 people come in and say the person also raped them, but they're not actually the cases you're trying.
00:15:04
Speaker
And then it's like, you don't have to prove any of those cases, but it just ends up being this like critical mass of, well, if he raped 10 people, he probably raped this one woman, which see which doesn't seem like real.
00:15:19
Speaker
i agree that it does not seem like real evidence. We'll break them down anyway, because there are a lot of discrepancies anyway between the sort of testimonies of the different women. Even though he wasn't technically on, like, being charged with some of these, I'm still going to go through them because I feel like, well, one, they're pretty interesting. And two, like, if I was in court, even though they'd allowed these women to make these testimonies, like,
00:15:47
Speaker
I can't understand how they came to the decision that they did that he was definitely guilty because there are so many sort of plot holes in them. So we'll start off with Annabella Sciorra. So she's the Sopranos actress.
00:15:59
Speaker
and but those For people who are sopranos heads, she's the ah gumar of Tony, the one that ends up but like killing herself. What's a gumar?
00:16:10
Speaker
A gumar, that's like the Italian slang in Jersey for mistress. okay. Gumar. Yeah. It's not a real Italian word. Is that anything to do with like gooning or no?
00:16:21
Speaker
I don't think so. ah Okay. Yeah. She's the, she's the one who kills herself. She's the, he, she's the hot, really hot one. That is like a psychological, like head case basically.
00:16:32
Speaker
Okay. Wow. That kind of, that kind of tracks with a real life persona as you'll come to discover. But i will I will say one thing about her and one thing about all these women that I just Googled is like, similarly, they're all women who've had like some minor success in the acting field, but like did not go on to be like A-list stars. So I think that's worth noting too. Anyway. Yeah, for sure. Definitely.
00:16:57
Speaker
So Skiora claimed that in the winter of 1993 or 1994, she can't remember, after attending a dinner hosted by Miramax,
00:17:08
Speaker
Weinstein offered her a ride home to her apartment. She went upstairs alone only to get like a knock at the door. She opens the door and Harvey Weinstein is there. He barges himself into her apartment uninvited and then pins her down on the bed and rapes her.
00:17:28
Speaker
There were no witnesses, ah no physical evidence. she Later she said that he like ejaculated onto her um nightgown. And that became like a big thing in court. They were talking about like the nightgown that he'd like ejaculated onto, but like you live in New York, right?
00:17:46
Speaker
Okay. So what kind of neighborhood is Gramercy park? It's a really like wealthy neighborhood and the look kind of like the, reason it's like chic is that, um, well, I guess I should clarify cause said it on the podcast before. I live in Jersey, but I work, ah but i work in New York.
00:18:03
Speaker
Um, but yeah, Gramercy Park is, um, What's like chic about it is that like, if you get ah one of these apartments, you get a key to what's actually a park, Gramercy Park, which is like the last, which is like the last private park in New York. So you can only go in there if you have a key.
00:18:21
Speaker
ah Anyway, but yeah, the neighborhood's like upscale, wealthy vibe. So if you live in a nice building in Gramercy Park. You have a doorman for sure.
00:18:33
Speaker
So how realistic is it that somebody who has never been to your apartment before, doesn't know what number you live at, could just arrive at your door unannounced with the doorman, not calling you in advance to let you know, not asking you whether you want to let this person in.
00:18:48
Speaker
he you just got a knock on the door, you open the door and lo and behold, there's Harvey Weinstein. When you live in this like 24 hour, like manned building with like a doorman.
00:19:00
Speaker
Like, does that seem realistic to you? Because it doesn't seem realistic to me. No. No. Exactly. door The doorman will usually, in my experience, even if you they even if the person has called down and said they are coming...
00:19:19
Speaker
the doorman will usually still call up to announce you anyway. And I guess the only thing I could think of is like Harvey, went um you know, maybe he saw Harvey Weinstein was the one who dropped her off. But even then the like the idea that a a New York doorman would let the person, especially a man and a woman, let the man just come up after you clearly did not bring him into the apartment yourself would be, i mean, the doorman would be fired for sure but because that's an insane thing to do. Like just let the man up that you clearly did not invite into your, you know?
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, they obviously they, cause she can't remember specifically when this was, she doesn't know whether it was 99 three or 99 four. She said she knows that it was in the winter.
00:20:12
Speaker
um they couldn't like identify the specific doorman who was on duty at the time and sort of get him in um to give his sort testimony. But the building that she lived in has had the same building manager for 30 years. So they did have him come in to the court and testify.
00:20:30
Speaker
um and he said that he actually knew he he knew um Annabella. He was working there at the time when she was living there. And he knew all the doormen that he had on staff.
00:20:41
Speaker
they were staffed like 24 hours a day. So, like and they would have two doormen. So even if one of them wanted to go to the toilet for a break, um there'd always be at least one person on the door.
00:20:52
Speaker
um And he just said, like, basically like this, the policy would be that they would always ring up and like check whether you wanted them to let this person in. They would never let somebody in unannounced.
00:21:04
Speaker
He was asked in court whether after the alleged event, like she had spoke to the staff about them letting somebody in that she hadn't said was okay. she She never made any sort of um complaint to them about that.
00:21:17
Speaker
So it just, I don't know. It just doesn't add up to me that that he would be able to access her apartment like that freely. Even if he's like Harvey Weinstein, he's like this big famous guy. Like i would wager that like before the whole Me Too thing,
00:21:33
Speaker
People might have known the name Harvey Weinstein, but not everybody would have known like even what Harvey Weinstein looked like. He's certainly not in new york a random New York doorman. I mean, I didn't know who Harvey Weinstein was. mean, i I love film and stuff, and I i knew Miramax. I knew that that was a production company, but I wouldn't have been able to pick Harvey Weinstein out of a lineup. Me neither.
00:21:53
Speaker
So it doesn't seem likely that he would be able to sort of access to the apartment that freely. Well, wait, I just want to say one thing. I'm sorry. I'm i'm really working on not interrupting you. i just want to be i just want to be clear about one thing.
00:22:06
Speaker
Regardless of whether this story is true or not, I think it's worth noting that in a court of law if the story doesn't add up, that seems like enough for reasonable doubt. yes like You know what i mean? So the fact that there were all these just the fact that there's this massive discrepancy in this doorman situation, I think is enough for reasonable doubt, regardless of whether you... but And you you have to understand, like the criminal justice system has to operate that way.
00:22:33
Speaker
for everybody, right? Like, you have to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And this alone seems like it's enough to create reasonable doubt. Especially because at the time, there was no... i mean, she wouldn't even have had to, like, bring a full rape allegation against him at the time to just say...
00:22:53
Speaker
to her building management, like someone was let into my apartment that I didn't want to be let into my apartment. Like there needs to be some sort of, you know, formal investigation of this.
Defending Weinstein and Testimonial Discrepancies
00:23:04
Speaker
She wouldn't even have had to have done a whole police report or anything if that's what, if that's not what she wanted to do.
00:23:10
Speaker
um and then I also would just say the other factor that I'm wondering if it's missing is how much either of them were drinking, because that's the only way I could like see a scenario where like, maybe she like kind of didn't even realize that like he was with her and like, you know what I mean? And like, so her, so her memory of it is kind of hazy.
00:23:32
Speaker
ah You know, I'm sure these dinners are extremely boozy. So that's an element of it. I guess I'm just curious. They were even, either of them were even asked about that. but Yeah. And I think even a situation like that, that's giving her like, that's, that's like a charitable approach to this. And even then it like, doesn't really super make sense.
00:23:52
Speaker
But like in terms of um how she sort of said that this affected her, she talked about um how it kind of sent her into this like spiral of like deep depression and trauma.
00:24:06
Speaker
um She became addicted to Valium. She implied that he was responsible for getting her addicted to Valium because he supposedly sent her a hamper with a bottle of Valium in it. The defense actually had a witness that they had subpoenaed um who was a former colleague of hers and he was supposed to come in basically to testify that her drug problems and her like mental health problems like preceded the alleged event with weinstein because he'd worked with her on a show years before and she was having a lot of issues with drugs but he didn't show up and this was a this was a huge um
00:24:46
Speaker
issue for the defense throughout the trial. They found it really, really difficult to get people to show up to testify for the defense. And i think one of the main issues was that a lot of these people that they were calling on as witnesses, they worked in the entertainment industry and that would have been like career suicide to defend Harvey Weinstein in court because I mean, even, even as somebody who doesn't like necessarily like know the ins and outs of the trial, like we all saw the effect of like the me too movement. And we all saw how quickly everybody turned on him. As soon as these allegations came out, you had people who had been in photographs, like smiling and hugging him, coming out, like talking about how much of a monster he was, um, whether it was like Hillary Clinton or like fucking, um,
00:25:37
Speaker
Like actresses, like the the long long list of like actresses who came out and sort of said like, oh no, he was inappropriate with me. He was inappropriate with me. So like the idea of like going to court and defending him when your career sort of like hangs in the balance. Like I can understand why people would be reluctant to. Well, it's it's really ironic because if you think about it, the reason...
00:26:03
Speaker
and I want to get back to the trial in a minute, but the reason that um people say that they didn't like say anything about this stuff at the time is because he was so powerful in the industry that they would have like lost career opportunities. But ironically to defend Harvey Weinstein in any way, shape or form would have been career suicide at the time that um this was happening. It's just one of those things that happens sometimes where there's like a mass,
00:26:30
Speaker
kind of huge thing that happens kind of driven by social media. And there's really no, you can't really go against it in any way. um at least. yeah Um, but let's keep going. Let's, let's keep doing the trial. is now She does have one witness that came in to sort of corroborate her story, which was her friend, Rosie Perez, who's a, I think she's an Oscar nominated actress. Yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
yeah So she came in, I think this was day two, maybe. She came in to sort of corroborate her story and she testified that she received a phone call from Annabella Sciorra where she sounded really, really upset. She was speaking very quietly um and she basically just said over the phone, like, I think I was raped. and She didn't clarify on the telephone call as far as the testimony went when this had happened. so
00:27:28
Speaker
Like Rosie didn't know whether this was something that had immediately just happened or whether it was something that happened a few days ago. um She just gets this phone call from her friend and a friend says on the phone, like, I think I've been raped.
00:27:39
Speaker
She tries to sort of convince her to go to the police about it. She says, no, no, I can't go to the police. He's too powerful. And then the cause she ends the call and Rosie Perez supposedly keeps trying to call her back and she's not answering her phone. Like she doesn't answer her phone.
00:27:56
Speaker
if If I was your friend, if if you received a phone call like that from your friend, like, what's the first thing that you would do I mean, okay, so I have had friends tell me that they've been raped before.
00:28:11
Speaker
um i mean, i don't think I would and any sort of attempting to contact them until I made sure that they were at least physically okay.
00:28:24
Speaker
um You know what i mean? Like they weren't going to like, they weren't going to like do anything really scary or bad. I mean, I would at least make sure they were, you know. Well, she didn't do that. and she She tried to call her a few times and then she didn't do anything.
00:28:40
Speaker
I mean, to be honest though, I wouldn't like immediately like call 911 either. No, but I would go round to her apartment. They live in the same city. Yes, i will definitely I would definitely make sure the friend, if that specific thing happened where someone said that to me and then hung up on me and I could not get hold of them, I would be alarmed enough to call the building. All those doormen have phones and say say, I'm worried this person is in physical danger for themselves. I would do something like that, you know, like to...
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, or if I'm in the same city, attempt to get there. I mean, New York's massive and it's possible she could have been even in the same city hours away. But and i would have done i would have done something, you know? Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker
Well, this is like, I don't know. That's just like friend code 101. Like, especially given the fact that she doesn't, it turned out um supposedly that um this phone call supposedly took place months after the rape had happened.
00:29:38
Speaker
but she didn't know that when she was speaking to her on the phone. She just has a friend who's really upset and she's just told her that she's been raped. Especially if my friend's being quiet and i I have some reason to believe that like this person could still be in their apartment or Literally, like you have no idea. Like the person could be in the other room.
00:29:55
Speaker
um So yeah, I don't know that. That didn't really add up for me. They did call, the defense did call in an x expert. And this is kind of interesting because it kind of goes back to what you were saying about like,
00:30:08
Speaker
I don't know, a charitable interpretation being that like her memory could be kind of hazy. Maybe they were drinking blah, blah, blah, blah. The, the expert that the, um, defense brought in was, um, a woman who sort of specializes in like study of like memory and how memories can change over time based on like external influences. And she was like a really interesting woman and the, she wasn't allowed to relate what she was saying directly to the case. Um, but she gave like a few different case studies about like, um, experiments that they'd done where they'd show people like, I don't know, like a video of like a car crash or something. And then tell them like weeks later that there was like, I don't know, a red lamppost in the image that wasn't really there. And they would all stop believing that there was a red lamppost because they keep hearing about it.
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, but it was, she, she gave this like long testimony about how um memories can be like changed and altered over time, like based on external influences. And I think the argument that they were trying to make was that the the media coverage of like the Weinstein allegations could have somehow like implanted this like false memory in her brain about what had actually happened. And she, she'd sort of like made herself like interpret events differently to the way that they actually occurred. But I actually felt like this, like,
00:31:35
Speaker
weakened the their case. Like I felt like if they'd just gone, if they if they'd gone for the approach that this actress was lying, it would have been more, it would have made more sense. Let me ask a question. was the was Was Weinstein's contention that they had sex consensually or that nothing happened at all?
00:31:55
Speaker
I don't even think they went into that because they weren't actually um charging him with this incident. It was just, um it was there to kind of bolster the, um, the accusation of sort of like predatory sexual behavior.
00:32:08
Speaker
So I don't think he really like had to prove whether or not like they'd had any kind of sexual relationship. Um, he didn't speak pretty much the whole trial anyway. He didn't give any evidence or anything, but.
Legal Complexity of Proving Guilt
00:32:19
Speaker
right. Let's keep moving through the women though. Cause I feel like we got to. Yeah. So the next one, let's say okay. So this one, this was a real like charged crime. Um, so Miriam Haley, she was a former production assistant.
00:32:32
Speaker
She alleged two assaults in 2006. First, that Weinstein had forcibly performed oral sex on her at his Soho apartment. And the second that he had raped her in a hotel room at the Tribeca Grand Hotel.
00:32:49
Speaker
um Prior to these incidents, she'd been working closely with Weinstein on a production and had willingly accompanied him to various events, accepted trips, gifts, career help from him,
00:33:01
Speaker
before and after the alleged assaults. This one was kind of interesting because she alleges that he performed like oral sex on her at his apartment and then carries on like a relationship with him and then alleges that he like raped her in a hotel and then still carries on a relationship with him.
00:33:25
Speaker
This one, they brought out like a lot of emails because there was like, You can't actually find these emails online because they weren't released in full to the public. But there was like a whole string of emails between the two of them where she would sign the emails like, love Mimi.
00:33:41
Speaker
She would email him asking if he had any job opportunities or when he was next going to be in New York. And a lot of this was taking place like after he had supposedly raped her in a hotel. And it just, it doesn't check out for me. Like the the idea that you would maintain this kind of not even just like a cordial relationship with somebody who just assaulted you, but like a, I don't know, you wouldn't say love to somebody who'd like raped you and sexually assaulted you.
00:34:09
Speaker
No, probably not. i mean, i think that like what this sort of, that what I would say like this sort of shows is that even if like, he was using her for some sort of intimacy and she was using him for career advancement, that at the bare minimum, this would like cross the bar of like legally consensual in the sense that like, I probably wouldn't cross like some feminist, you know, definition of consent, but it's like,
00:34:41
Speaker
um that's like what I think is confusing about the Weinstein case to people is that like, there were certainly people who were doing this with Harvey Weinstein by choice because they wanted to get something out of it. And that makes him a sleaze ball. But the idea that that means the woman has no agency and like doesn't understand what she's doing is also strange to me because it's like,
00:35:09
Speaker
I don't know. You don't have to work at an entertainment and you definitely don't have to have sex with someone to get a job. Yeah. This one also had a sort of friend who came in sort of like corroborate her story. and Elizabeth Eddington. She came in and testified that um i think she lived with Haley at the time that Haley had seemed distressed after visiting Weinstein's apartment in 2006. And she said that Haley did allegedly tell her that Weinstein has sexually assaulted her.
00:35:39
Speaker
She also, this is kind of like a, ah sort of a jokey thing in the court. Um, she said that he would come around and visit quite a lot and trying to try to convince her to like go to events and things with him, like after the assault had supposedly taken place.
00:35:54
Speaker
Um, and she'd always sort of make up excuses not to go. um and she told the story of one time he apparently came around and they had like a pet chihuahua who was like chasing him around the apartment and he ended up just leaving cause he was scared of the dog.
00:36:08
Speaker
And um one of the court reporters um supposedly heard Weinstein say, like, I'm not afraid of a chihuahua. Do I look like I'd be afraid of a chihuahua? Which I thought was quite funny.
00:36:20
Speaker
but I mean, i'm I'll certainly, like, do my generous interpretation thing with this too. and like I definitely think it's possible that Harvey Weinstein forced these encounters on her um and that she was troubled by them, but didn't feel troubled enough to um really like disengage completely with him. But I guess what I would argue is, like again, this is enough on the legal front to inject reasonable doubt into her story. So I'm like kind i'm like kind of willing to give this generous interpretation that these women did experience what they would call
00:37:07
Speaker
you know, like violating sexual experiences, but also I'm like, there's enough tertiary evidence to like make it. So like, I don't really think rises to the legal standard of like beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:37:22
Speaker
You know, i also think it's worth mentioning that like, I think people often can and often do feel like, some sort of violating feeling about consensual sex. You know, like you can definitely have sex that is consensual that you don't feel good about.
00:37:40
Speaker
And I think that like one thing that Me Too kind of muddied the waters on is that it's like, you know, if just because you felt bad about it, it means that there was an assault of some kind. That's obviously not always true.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah. If you go, if you do go back or any of the listeners like go back and they do listen to some of these testimonies, like one of things that I found really striking about like the, the prosecution was they, they really pushed this idea of him as being like ugly and grotesque and overweight. There are a lot of questions about like,
00:38:15
Speaker
how much he weighed and like what his body looks like and things like this and it it felt like they were trying to push this narrative that like he was so hideous that like no attractive woman would ever want to have sex with him i'm just thinking women do be having sex with ugly men like they just do like um and i just i I don't know. It's like, you only have to look at his fucking wife at the time to realize like he was capable of bagging babes.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. Especially, especially a rich, powerful guy. I mean, that's like the unspoken thing that like, no one wants to admit is like, would Harvey Weinstein, if he was just like a plumber, be able to land these women? No, but, no yeah but a Harvey Weinstein, even though the way he looked like who he is at who he was at the time, you know,
00:39:10
Speaker
But I also think it's weird because it's like, I almost don't feel like women could like, at the time, i don't think like any women could even say that they had consensual sex with Harvey. It was just such a like hot rod topic, you know? And again, like I think Harvey Weinstein, like to be clear, like nothing you've told me makes me think that he's like not a like piece of shit. No, I, I, I concur. Like I, I think he's a piece of shit.
00:39:40
Speaker
Um, and I'm not, I'm not even necessarily convinced that he shouldn't be in jail for something. Like he may well have like done something with someone that would warrant that. But I just think on the, I, I don't think they did a good enough job of like proving beyond reasonable doubt that he's guilty of these crimes.
00:39:58
Speaker
I don't even know whether you can without physical evidence. I don't know. it is, it is very muddy. Um, we'll move on to the next one anyway. The next one, She was probably, the next one was probably one of the most, um, like dramatic days in court. So this girl, Jessica Mann, um, she was also central to the conviction. So, um, this is another rape charge one. Um, she was a former aspiring actress.
00:40:25
Speaker
Um, she was from a very sort of conservative religious background. I think she was from like somewhere in the countryside. um and she testified that Weinstein raped her in 2013.
00:40:39
Speaker
at the Doubletree Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. They had previously engaged in a consensual sexual relationship that continued after the alleged ah incident.
00:40:51
Speaker
And she said she met him at the hotel expecting a professional meeting, but instead he forced himself on her. The reason that this um particular testimony was so controversial, because I don't know whether you've heard anything about this, but she,
00:41:06
Speaker
She claims that he like looked deformed and intersex and that he had no testicles and it appeared like he had a vagina. And she actually said this in court, which is just, I don't,
00:41:20
Speaker
First of all, i don't know how you get raped by somebody who has a vagina, but... It's apparently real that, like, he had some sort of insane infection. I don't think it was an STD, but, like, something... Okay, this is what I read. i don't know if this is true, but apparently there is a type of infection where one of the treatments is to, like...
00:41:40
Speaker
sew your testicles like into your thigh to protect them in some way. And like this is something that can happen if you're in really old and in really bad health, I guess. like um So I have heard that he had like deformed genitalia from some sort of infection that would... um But I'm also, yeah, I mean, if your genitals are that,
00:42:09
Speaker
botched from like a serious infection and you're like really old like in your 60s and 70s like i kind of feel like you just like are sort of not having sex but maybe i'm wrong yeah this one um i think it was this there's been so much there's been so i do remember like various like in the la trial too like seeing posts on twitter there's been so many descriptions of his like penis being like deformed and stuff like well this is like this was i think it was jessica mann but one of them had said that um like after the incident that's supposedly taken place, she went into the bathroom and there was like ah a needle in the trash bag, because he'd apparently injected some kind of drug into his penis.
00:42:50
Speaker
um But she couldn't she couldn't say what the drug was, she couldn't remember. It was just like, okay, this sounds a bit dodgy. But yeah, Annabella Sciorra, the Sopranos one, she also said something about his penis being deformed.
00:43:02
Speaker
But then a lot of the other women, um when they initially spoke to the DA, and were asked about his genitalia, they said that his genitalia looked normal. And then later they would change their testimony to say that his genitals were deformed. And I'm sort of like, is the DA like asking like leading questions to sort of and encourage them to sort of change what they're saying about the way he looked? I don't know.
00:43:26
Speaker
this the the I have no idea what his genitalia looks like. I think they actually handed... photographs to the drawers and showed them his junk. Um, I think that was one of the things that happened on one of the days in court, but like, but yeah, the, the fact that there was so many like conflicting testimonies about like what ah genitalia looks like, I think shows that at least some of these women weren't being truthful.
00:43:55
Speaker
I mean, i think that like, okay, so I've been really generous with like the women's stories, I feel. So like to be like more conspiratorial for a minute, I obviously think a ton of like awful bad sex shit happens in Hollywood. And i I'm going to say that on the grand scale of like,
00:44:12
Speaker
um sexual wrongs, like ambiguous sort of potentially transactional sex between adults.
00:44:23
Speaker
Not great, but much... um lower on my list of concerns than like shit involving like children and stuff like that, you know which I'm almost certain does happen a lot in Hollywood. um So I kind of had this feeling in my conspiratorial side of my brain that Weinstein was sort of like a sacrificial lamb of like, we're just gonna put all of our sins onto this guy who like definitely is like a sleazebag, but like he's gonna sort of distract
00:44:55
Speaker
from a more thorough ah look at what's going on in Hollywood. So that's like my conspiracy theory and like why the trials were like so sensational and like included so many of these like erroneous details that seem designed to like basically humiliate Weinstein and like get headlines, you know? yeah Because they're trying, they're trying to distract from like this, um,
00:45:22
Speaker
like broader truth that like the industry is like rife with like sexual abuse of all sorts. And they don't want people to get to like even darker elements, you know? Yeah.
00:45:34
Speaker
The Jessica man one was interesting. i think cause they're like, so it supposedly happened at this like double tree hotel. Um, I think she'd gone there for like a movie premiere. think it was like, Oh say that Oh say Jossage County or whatever that movie was. And that was from like two, I can't remember. Some movie with Julia Roberts that came out in 2013, I think he'd invited her to let the premiere of that.
00:45:55
Speaker
But she'd gone with like a friend and they'd had like breakfast the next morning and after the alleged incident had supposedly taken place. And her friend was called to testify and he said that she was behaving completely normal.
00:46:11
Speaker
um She agreed to stay. They were supposed to both go home together and she agreed to stay an extra night in New York. um so I don't know. Like it seemed just bizarre to me that she would like and be sort of raped by this guy and then agree to stay like an extra, an extra night in the city with him, knowing that he's going to be around and like leave her friends, go home alone. i don't know. It's, it's all just, it all just feels.
00:46:41
Speaker
Well, find the notion, I find the notion that like, because this is like a notion that came out very much in the Me Too movement. Like I find the notion that you could like quote unquote realize you you were raped years after an incident kind of insane and a lot of ways. Like I think if you really break down the logic of that, it's like we had to like sit through like a million think pieces about how that that's a realistic thing.
00:47:09
Speaker
And that was definitely the party line. But I just, i mean, if you really just think about it on its, on face value, like it just seems really unlikely that you would realize years later that you were forced to have sex. It seems like that would be something you would realize later.
00:47:26
Speaker
as it's happening. i mean, I hate to, I mean, I'm not trying to be mean. Like i I do think like sexual assault and stuff can be like obviously very damaging to people and like have a profound impact on people's lives. So I'm not trying to diminish it, but I just think this idea that like Me Too kind of cultivated that you can years later suddenly be like, I was raped ah and realize it yourself, you yourself realize it just feels kind of crazy to me.
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know if i agree, but I just, it it just seems. No, I do agree. And it's not like the like, it's not something that's so im far away from my own life that I don't understand the significance and the the damage that it can do to people.
00:48:11
Speaker
But I think that's why it annoys me even more when I see, like, because I had a real bee in my bonnet about this. Like, my mom will tell you, I wouldn't stop going on about it for weeks because I just,
00:48:22
Speaker
I just thought it was insane because it's, it's, if they can do something like this to like Harvey Weinstein, they can do it to anyone really. And I don't know. I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that he's like completely innocent or like an angel or whatever, but like the, the burden is supposed to be on, not on him. Like he doesn't have to prove that he's innocent. and Like they have to prove that he's guilty. And I just feel like,
00:48:48
Speaker
they couldn't prove that he was guilty. So yeah. And I mean, I think that like, we want words to mean something and like sexual assault is really serious. And I think that having like a clear definition of it that like,
00:49:01
Speaker
it like is easily is like easily understood and prosecutable is important you know and I think that's one of the critiques of me too like I think there's some valid things that came out of me too like people are seemingly more willing and open to talk about these things but at the same time it's like it kind of like reduced everything into this really broad umbrella category that they decided was going to be called sexual misconduct.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah. And it was like so broad and so huge that it was like almost any sexual and encounter could like fall on, theoretically fall under the um you know, sexual misconduct ah umbrella that it's like, that also is, seems really bad for,
00:49:51
Speaker
actually prosecuting this stuff. um The other thing I think is weird is like, i I remember at the time, like, there was, like, a big... Like, they were trying to explain, like, why these women would, like, go to what they perceived as professional meetings and hotel rooms and, like, trying to claim this was, like, really common in the film industry because, like, having office space was, like, too expensive for them or something. But then I... When i when you really think about that, that seems very weird, too.
00:50:19
Speaker
Like, these big Hollywood producers can't afford to have a ah An office in New, and one office in New York and LA to meet people in.
00:50:32
Speaker
I mean, there were a few examples where like incidents had supposedly taken place at like Cannes and they'd sort of like set up like hotel rooms as offices, which I guess kind of makes a bit more sense. Cause you're not gonna, you're not gonna have like an office space in Cannes, but like, but yeah, generally speaking, like people do be having offices and they, there was literally a Miramax building in New York. There might even still be. Um, yeah.
00:50:58
Speaker
Or like a brunch or like, I just feel like there's options that are not, I feel, I mean, I, I have trouble wrapping my head around going to any sort of professional meeting in any sort of hotel room because it just feels, I wouldn't, I don't want to be inside of a hotel room with anybody ever that I don't know extremely well.
Sexual Misconduct and Me Too Movement
00:51:16
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah. So the next one was Dawn Dunning. She claimed that in 2004, she met Weinstein. again in a hotel suite expecting a professional meeting.
00:51:29
Speaker
She claimed that he groped her under a skirt and later presented her with film contracts, offering them in exchange for a threesome. um During a court testimony, she said, he put his hand up my skirt, his hand went under my underwear, he was trying to put it in my vagina.
00:51:50
Speaker
um Here's contracts for my next three films. I'll sign them today if you have a threesome with me and my assistant. The issue obviously with this testimony, there was no physical evidence, there were no witnesses or contemporaneous complaints, and it only surfaced many years later.
00:52:05
Speaker
um Her career pursuits post-incident showed no signs of trauma or avoidance of Mr. Weinstein. Um, again, as we've been mentioning a lot, I'd see very little, and see a lot of reasonable doubt and very little clear, you know, evidence. What just happened? You just took a big swig or something?
00:52:29
Speaker
No, I'm boiling hot. I'm like melting. Yeah. You're, I forgot you don't have air conditioning. No, having a great heat wave. I have a fan, but like i can't turn on cause it's too noisy for the pod.
00:52:40
Speaker
Right. Um, Yeah, I mean, those are my continued thoughts on everything I'm hearing is just like, because the whole point of this is to show that like Weinstein probably shouldn't have been convicted.
00:52:52
Speaker
and I don't, I still don't see any evidence of that. um I also find the assistant thing strange, like in any of this, does, do any of these assistants corroborate any of this stuff?
00:53:07
Speaker
No, um that was another one where like, he'd had uh three like it was one i think it was one of the ones that he raped like maybe jessica mann or maureen hayley where i think it was jessica mann the one that he was having a relationship with there was apparently like this like awkward quote threesome with uh i think she was like a spanish or like italian actress who like barely spoke a word of english and they got her on the stand to testify and she kind of corroborated that they'd had like a threesome but not that um
00:53:41
Speaker
that the the girl had kind of been like forced into it, or that it was awkward or weird. She kind of like, I don't know. I can't imagine ever having a threesome. It sounds like the worst thing in the world.
00:53:53
Speaker
but They're pretty bad, to be honest. Do you speak from experience? Yeah, i I've had at least, don't know six or seven threesome. Oh my God. I've never, never once he had what I would call a good threesome ever. I mean, and and I have not really actually I want i want to let's just press that back into the back of my brain. But some of some of them were, uh, deeply, deeply, deeply awkward. And i wish they had not happened. So, um, but I am not going to tell that story on the pod because I'm in a pretty good, I'm in a pretty good mood today. And I don't feel like, I don't feel like reliving my dark past right now.
00:54:41
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, the problem with threesomes that I think is just generally true is that sex is an intimate act between two people. And part of what's fun about it is that intimacy between two people. And there's almost always a two people that end up um kind of like more into it than...
00:55:02
Speaker
ah you like, like sometimes you're just like the odd man out, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Or someone's the odd man out. And then it's just, there's kind of this awkward third party sort of, and I've been in,
00:55:17
Speaker
again, I'm trying not to remember too clearly trying to keep my memory, trying to keep my memory as hazy as possible, but I feel like I've been both the odd man out and the person who's more involved with a strange floating person nearby. you know what I mean?
00:55:35
Speaker
I always think with like threesomes, I don't know, like if you're in a relationship and your partner brings it up, I would just immediately feel like I wasn't enough for them. And then like, I don't know if you're like the sort of the guest star, so to speak.
00:55:50
Speaker
Like, I just feel like you're like complicit in like the death of a relationship. I don't know. I think, I guess the ideal scenario is that like, none of you are like romantically connected with each other. But then even then, I just think, I don't know, I'm too jealous of a person and I would feel.
00:56:07
Speaker
uncomfy and left out. That's the only type I've ever had was two ah three completely unconnected people. Yeah. I've never had, like, I would never break i would never bring it into, I mean, once I reformed my ways, I would never bring that into my relationship ever in a million years. so I mean, I guess unless, I mean, i guess I could theoretically, i mean, this will never happen, but I guess theoretically if my boyfriend, like,
00:56:35
Speaker
really, really wanted to do it. I could see a situation where I would, i I would for him just because I like love him so much, but I just like, I couldn't imagine and wanting, wanting it really. I could just imagine sort of doing it if there was this very specific request or whatever.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah. I would feel really like, I feel like that would be if I feel like if I was with somebody and they asked to do threesome, That would be like a deal breaker for me. I don't know. I'd be like, ugh.
00:57:08
Speaker
guess I'm like slightly open-minded in the sense like if there was something I like was really unwilling or unable to provide to my partner. But you know, honestly, sexual experiences aren't that important. And people who feel like, oh, if I don't do this, I'm going to miss out. I'm never going to have, it's like, what are you really missing out on him You know?
00:57:29
Speaker
A moment of pleasure and not a lifetime of pain. Like I hear people say shit like this. Anyway, we're like getting way off topic. We are, but it's fine. I hear people say shit like this all the time. Like, Oh, I've always had this fantasy and,
00:57:41
Speaker
what if I die without fulfilling it? I'm like, well, who cares? mean, literally, it's like not that serious. Even if you do fulfill it, like are you going to Write a fucking book about it. Who else knows? Who else knows that you didn't do it or did do it? Like no one cares. And I feel like, and I feel like traveling and like, there I feel like there's so many other things that like, if you're going to have a bucket list, like you should work on achieving as opposed to some like very specific sexual fantasy. And the fantasy is never as good as the,
00:58:11
Speaker
um, the reality ever. I mean, really, that's just like, never is. Um, but Harvey back to Harvey. I mean, I guess what I'll say at this point in the podcast is is he's, he's certainly, he's certainly a sex, sex addict deviant.
00:58:28
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. He's not in any way loyal to his wife. No, but then, but then like, I don't know. It's not,
00:58:39
Speaker
it's not the jury's responsibility to judge like morality. They're just mean like, okay. If I was going to say like, Oh, like if there was some like omnipresent being that could tell me the absolute truth.
00:58:54
Speaker
And I had to bet on whether Harvey Weinstein had raped someone or not. I would bet on he had, that that would be That would be my bet. Like if there was some like, if there was some like omnipresent spirit that could confirm or deny.
00:59:09
Speaker
it doesn't mean that he should go to jail. I'm just saying like, I think that's probably why he was convicted because most people probably believe that it's likely that he, you know. Yeah.
00:59:20
Speaker
I think what we'll do, we'll bash through the like last two because there's only two more women. And then i want to go through a little bit of the, the closing statement that Donna Rotono, his lawyer, um gave because she she kind of went over the the two that he's actually being charged for and kind of picks apart their stories in a way that I i felt was really compelling. And i kind of thought like, how have they listened to this and just like still decided to like there's like, they know beyond reasonable doubt that they did it. But anyway, so the next one is Tarali Wolf.
00:59:58
Speaker
um She was a cocktail waitress in the early 2000s. And she says that Weinstein invited her to discuss modeling or acting. So she was ah cocktail waitress at this club that he used to frequent quite a lot.
01:00:13
Speaker
um She claimed that he like pulled her aside and into like a corridor um and then just started like masturbating at her.
01:00:24
Speaker
um and that she then claims that he she went for a meeting in air quotes, at his apartment, and then he raped her. And I'm sort of thinking, if you work at a cocktail bar and that and a patron is, like, fucking jerked off in front of you and then asks you to go to his apartment, like, are you really going to say yes?
01:00:44
Speaker
I don't know. ah But anyway, so there was no um there was no media report after this. um There was no physical evidence. They maintained contact. I was in... I'm interrupting you, and I'm sorry. No, it's fine. I would say that if I was in her...
01:00:59
Speaker
situation, um i would assume that going to this person's apartment meant that I was going to sleep with them. Yes.
01:01:12
Speaker
And I would assume based on based on the fact that he's like pulled you aside to have a conversation about modeling or acting and then like masturbated at you, that even if he hasn't explicitly stated so, that there's some kind of exchange here. He's sort of saying like,
01:01:29
Speaker
I'll make you into an actress if you let me fuck you. So I don't know. i feel like you wouldn't, you wouldn't go to that meeting unless you kind of wanted him to do some things for you career wise.
01:01:41
Speaker
And this girl's like, she's like a lowly cocktail, which is, I Googled her actually. And she's, she's very pretty. She's kind of a Asian babe. Um, she looks like she's, there's some photos of her, like, uh, like a boxing match holding like the sign up. So she, I think she turned into a ring girl at some point, but, um,
01:01:58
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. and the I feel like you you know what you're getting in for. And then the last one, Lauren Young. Again, this was another one where it wasn't a charged crime.
01:02:10
Speaker
um The testimony was only used to establish the pattern of predation. um So Lauren Young was an aspiring screenwriter and model, and she alleged that in 2013, she met Weinstein at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, where he led her into a hotel bathroom.
01:02:27
Speaker
trapped her and masturbated in front of her while she stood frozen. um a direct quote from her, she said, he was standing right in front of me, blocking the door, and he just started jerking off. He said, how am I going to know if you can act?
01:02:42
Speaker
I think the implication being that like he knew that she wouldn't find him attractive, but he wanted to sort play act that she enjoyed it somehow. With this one, there was a witness, supposedly, so Claudia Salinas, who think it was maybe a Mexican actress. She's very pretty. I Googled her before. Young said that she was complicit in this one so that she sort of helped to kind of law her up to this hotel suite and then kind of blocked her from getting out of the bathroom when she was like in there with Weinstein.
01:03:15
Speaker
um She initially, when she spoke to the DA said that this, this woman had like locked her in the bathroom from the outside. But that didn't make sense because there wasn't a lock on the outside of the room.
01:03:27
Speaker
um So she sort changed her story to say that she was sort of blocking it and she could see her sort of shadow through the through the door. But again, um aside from the witness who denies involvement, there were no other witnesses. This one happened in Los Angeles, so it was outside of New York jurisdiction.
01:03:47
Speaker
She only came forward after the media attention surrounding Weinstein had sort of intensified. And there was no forensic or documentary evidence at all to support her claims either.
01:03:58
Speaker
um So again, it's it's just he said, she said, um with no real... I'll go ahead and say i don't believe i don't believe this woman blocking the door thing at all.
01:04:13
Speaker
No, I don't either. That seems... I could see an assistant doing something like
01:04:24
Speaker
Pouring a lot of alcohol to sort of make a woman more... The thing about women is they... I feel like they... If they're going to participate in some sort of, like, male sex crime, they would definitely need some sort of plausible deniability in their brain. And it wouldn't be this, like, aggressive act of, like...
01:04:44
Speaker
blocking the door. it would be something like, Oh, I just invited these girls over and I made a bunch, I made a bunch of drinks and like, I could believe in sort of that sort of soft participation in something like this, but I just, I have a lot of difficulty believing in, you know? Yeah.
01:05:02
Speaker
Yeah. So these, most of the ones that we've gone through, obviously they, he's not being charged for those crimes. They were just sort of there to kind of build this picture of him as like a sexual predator.
01:05:14
Speaker
um I'm going to go through like Donna Rotono's like closing statement, just a little bit of it, where she talks about, I think it's Miriam Haley. um And she kind of gives a breakdown of the the timeline from sort of when they met to when she alleges the attack took place and then sort of what went on between them afterwards. And it just sounds unbelievable to me that this wasn't some kind of mutually beneficial relationship type thing happening.
01:05:44
Speaker
Okay, so this is the timeline events of Miriam Haley. So she meets Harvey at the Aviator premiere with Michael White in 2004. I don't know whether they mean Mike White, maybe, but anyway, as a sort of um White Lotus crossover.
01:06:04
Speaker
um In 2006, she claims she meets Mr. Weinstein at a hotel in Cannes. and claims of an awkward instance where he asks her for a massage and she's offended.
01:06:15
Speaker
Then in June of 2006, after being so offended, she goes to work on Project Runway, which is a Weinstein company show. She then, after moving to New York to work at Project Runway, goes to meet Harvey at the Mercer Hotel on June 27th of 2006. Sometime in June, she receives an invitation to Paris, which she does not accept.
01:06:39
Speaker
And then on July 10th, she claims sexual assault at his Soho apartment. The next day after she claims he sexually assaulted her, she flies to LA on a Weinstein ticket.
01:06:51
Speaker
She comes back from LA on July 24th, again on a Weinstein ticket. And two days later meets Mr. Weinstein and engages in a consensual sexual encounter.
01:07:02
Speaker
um July 31st, she contacts Harvey's office to see if she can go to London. And then after that, three days later, she flies to London on, again, a Weinstein ticket.
01:07:13
Speaker
September 8th, 2006, she reaches out to Harvey and his assistant about seeing him in London. Then in 2007, she pitches a TV show to him. And then later in 2007, requests premier tickets from Harvey.
01:07:27
Speaker
She continues contact with Mr. Weinstein after the fact. So yeah, there's this one she claims he assaulted her and then she has consensual sex with him. And then she keeps asking him to like give her stuff.
01:07:41
Speaker
I don't know. It just, it it just doesn't add up. It seems like maybe she was his like side chick and she was benefiting from it in terms of like job prospects and and stuff like that.
Weinstein's Defense and Cultural Impact
01:07:52
Speaker
But it doesn't, it doesn't add up to me that this, that anything illegal is sort of taking place here.
01:07:58
Speaker
No, I mean, she's clearly like retroactively defining something as assault that she was participating in, in full knowledge, you know? Yeah.
01:08:11
Speaker
I mean, I don't understand why you would just continually keep talking to this person, but that was sort of like what the problem was with like me too, really just like said, you know, there are no rules. Like if a woman says it's true, it's true. You know, you know what I mean?
01:08:30
Speaker
That was broad thrust of the entire movement. Yeah, but this idea that, like, i don't know, you can, like, look back on consensual encounters that you regret and sort of redefine them as something illegal that you can charge somebody for in a court of law, like, it's just insane. i don't know.
01:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, of course it's insane. But I mean, i think that that is just like, there was a, I don't know. i mean, i feel like Me Too happened right after Trump was elected. and I feel like there was just this big push of rage where there wanted, where everyone, where there there wanted to be some sort of like backlash against Trump. And this is what they you know, this is, this is, this is how it happened. Yeah.
01:09:21
Speaker
Yeah. There's another part from the, um, closing statement that I kind of sort of encapsulates kind of how I feel about the whole me too thing and like the Harvey Weinstein situation in general. Um, she kind of, um, played on this idea that the, is it called the prosecution when it's the, like the government side?
01:09:43
Speaker
Yeah. So the prosecution kind of, she talked about them sort of creating this universe that the, that these stories sort of take place in and it almost becomes like a script for them, their own sort of like version of the truth.
01:09:55
Speaker
Um, and she said that, um, they've created a universe that strips adult women of common sense, autonomy, and responsibility in their universe. Women are not responsible for the parties they attend, uh, the men they flirt with, the choices they make to further their own career, the hotel room invitations, the plane tickets.
01:10:15
Speaker
the jobs they accept, um or the help that they ask for. um They're not even responsible for sitting at their computer sending emails to someone across the country in the script. The powerful man is the villain, and he's so unattractive and large that no woman would ever want to sleep with him.
01:10:31
Speaker
well m Voluntary regret does not exist in this world, only regret renamed as rape. um And that kind of ah kind of sort of encapsulates the way that I feel about it, because I think It is insulting, this idea that women have no agency in these situations and that they're sort of weak before like any man. like I don't know. I feel like powerful men can be intimidating to a degree, but I don't think i don't think Harvey Weinstein would be particularly intimidating in a sort of situation where he was of coming on to you.
01:11:03
Speaker
like i don't think you I don't think most women would be powerless to sort of say no to a guy like that. No, I mean, I think that what it boils down to is that these women were doing this stuff because they wanted to get career advancement.
01:11:17
Speaker
And then in 2017 or 2018 or whatever, like society retroactively like kind of changed the rules and decided that that in and of itself is rape or sexual assault.
01:11:30
Speaker
yeah you're If you're doing something for some sort of transactional reason, then it's inherently rape, which is kind of ironic because the left's whole position is that like sex work is real work.
01:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. But you know, under this definition, like all sex work is rape, which is like actually a very sort of like radical feminist, which is the more conservative, you know, kind of,
01:11:52
Speaker
branch of feminism, it's like, that's like the TERFs, right? Like the TERFs think all sex work is rape. um but So it's just like, there's a lot of like conflating ideas um kind of swirling around.
01:12:06
Speaker
i mean, in my personal opinion, if you sleep with someone to, for a career advancement um motive, I don't think that you've been raped. so That's just my,
01:12:21
Speaker
but society has really blurred those, those lines, you know? Yeah. I am curious, like, don't know, cause I feel like, and this was something that did come up during the court. I think one of them kind of spilled the beans on something that he'd said about like actresses that had already like done it, like gone through with like sleeping with him.
01:12:42
Speaker
And I would love to have like the list of the ones who actually did it. um But I think Charlize Theron was mentioned in court as like somebody that had like, just slept with him and gone along with it. there are a few others and I sort of think like, I don't know.
01:12:56
Speaker
i think a lot of them all ah sort of turning on him was probably just this feeling of like, Oh, I did that and look what it got me. And and they can't sort of live with the shame of it.
01:13:07
Speaker
Even if they don't come out publicly and say that they had some kind of encounter with him. I mean, yeah, I would suck to do that. And like, care you're not Charlize Theron. You're just some like,
01:13:19
Speaker
You know, i mean, I would be, I would be pissed, but I don't think I would accuse the guy of rape. I mean, I know know that I wouldn't. I mean, but I would be mad. Like if I sucked his weird, like deformed dick, I i saw my friend become like a super famous movie star.
01:13:39
Speaker
um I mean, it is funny though, because in the whole Me Too thing, there wasn't a single, there were, there were, there were some, don't know, So the, the, the men who got caught, who, who like preyed on men were like Kevin Spacey who almost exclusively preyed on straight men. Yeah. um And it's interesting that like, there really wasn't, there was really very few examples of gay guys coming forward and saying, for me, dude. But I think like gay men are just much more um
01:14:14
Speaker
like, Yeah, they like accept responsibility for for their... Bad decisions. Yeah, yeah. They're just... It's much... And like... Yeah, so it's just... I don't know. It's... But like it is interesting that like there were very few examples of gay men, and the only men who were doing it to men that got caught were men who tried to like sleazily come on to like straight actors. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:41
Speaker
which i mean and makes sense because if you're coming on to a straight actor it's like that's you know you don't have any level of presumed interest whatsoever whatsoever yeah i do wonder as well how many of these women because apart from sort of rose mcgowan who i guess you can say is pretty famous um like most of the women who came forward and said like look he raped me or look he sexually assaulted me or something like none of them have these like incredible careers. And I do wonder how much of it was sort of like, maybe I can get like 15 minutes of fame out of this experience like by getting like my day in court.
01:15:23
Speaker
I definitely feel that way about like the Sopranos actress, Annabella Sciorra. I felt like, I don't know, she was kind of like a middling actress and now she's like the darling of the Me Too movement. But um yeah, I don't know.
01:15:35
Speaker
Well, there were some really famous actresses that said that Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed them. Yeah, well, that that was kind of the the easy way out, I think, because you sexual harassment is like such a vague term that it doesn't kind of tarnish their image in any sort of way. Because
Conspiracy Theories and Industry Implications
01:15:53
Speaker
I do think there is a there's a difference between like,
01:15:57
Speaker
Admitting that you've been like raped and admitting this like sort of sexual harassment. There's a difference in terms of the way that people view you. I feel like if you say sort of sexual harassment, you get the, you get some of the sort of like victimhood points, but without people like imagining a scenario where you're like actually engaging in sex. So it feels sort of purer somehow.
01:16:19
Speaker
Um, they can kind of retain their image. Of course. I mean, yeah, like part of, Like Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow kept it, um, kept it very big, big. Yeah.
01:16:36
Speaker
a There was, um, uh, there was that very like, um, trying to think of the word they used. Like, I don't know. Like they just, even Gwyneth Paltrow, like I've literally seen an interview where Gwyneth Paltrow like tells the story and I have literally no idea what's going on. Yeah. What do you make of a, what do you make of Rose McGowan? Like just in general a,
01:17:05
Speaker
Rose McGowan. I mean, i think she's and insane. i think she's insane too. She's kind of compelling in the same way, but like, I don't, I don't know whether I believe her story.
01:17:17
Speaker
I also think she's interesting. Cause she was an early sort of like vague turf coated celebrity. as She got, she, she got famous, more famous than probably ever before during the Weinstein thing. Yeah. And then she kind kind of got canceled to some extent because she said something like trans women have no idea what like women have gone through or whatever. Yeah.
01:17:45
Speaker
And yeah, it's just, it's just interesting. I don't know. um She's definitely one of the few who, I know she didn't have some like Gwyneth Paltrow level career, but she's, she's rich, you know?
01:18:00
Speaker
yeah Oh, she's, you know, one of the few that kind of has like an element of like glamour maybe to her. i'm just looking at our Wikipedia page now.
01:18:10
Speaker
I mean, it's, it is funny that one of the, his top accusers, Asia Argento was eventually accused of statutory rape, essentially.
01:18:21
Speaker
What, did she like sleep with a teenage boy or something? Yeah, she slept with us seven she slept with a 17-year-old who she In France or in America? ah ah In California.
01:18:34
Speaker
okay i guess that's illegal then. It might not have been technically illegal. I don't remember the the age of consent at the time she did it in California. Because in the States, there's some states where the age of consent is 16, and there's some states where it's 17, and there's some states where it's 18.
01:18:53
Speaker
Um, so there's like a big range, uh, or not a big range, but I mean, it's like, it's one of those three ages, but the scandal was that before Anthony, she was dating Anthony Bourdain when he killed himself. And apparently Anthony Bourdain paid this.
01:19:12
Speaker
I mean, now he's a man, but paid him like $300,000 to like sign an NDA about this interaction with Asia Argento. Wow. Wow. So there was like a second wave of Me Too where it was like Rose McGowan got canceled for being a TERF, Asia Argento got canceled for statutory rape. It was just like, you know.
01:19:34
Speaker
Yeah. it definitely feels It definitely feels like it's like, I mean, long over now, I think. But it it feels like, I don't know, there are definitely like certain celebrities haven't like sort of moved on with the times. Like if you look at the stuff that's going on with like Blake Lively and that guy from the movie whatever it's called this what's his name i forgot uh justin baldoni it feels like she's it feels like she's trying to do a me too but like the ship has sailed and i don't believe any of that anyway i think she's just after attention and trying to sort of rectify a image which has been destroyed but course i mean in amber i mean amber heard in johnny depp was like another big turning point because it was like
01:20:15
Speaker
you know i mean i don't I actually do think that Johnny Depp was probably... i Well, I don't know. Was Johnny Depp abusive? i mean I think he was probably abusive. I think they were both like awful people that were involved in a terrible toxic relationship. Yeah, I agree. i agree. um I think that that's clear. um But...
01:20:34
Speaker
you know i feel like am the Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial was a big turning turning point where you kind of saw that the culture had really shifted. and now it's shifted even further because like Blake Lively is... No one really believes her like her thing.
01:20:56
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. thats That is a whole other cowl fish. I don't know. I used to really like her. Like I still kind of like her in an odd way. Like I think she's like an evil villain, but like, I don't know. I do still find it oddly compelling and she's got great legs, but um yeah, I don't know.
01:21:15
Speaker
I think, yeah, with the Johnny Depp and the Amber Heard thing, I feel like, that was definitely kind of a turning point, but I think a lot of that is because he's just like, so beloved. It felt like it's like, believe all women, unless they're like going to try and take down Johnny Depp because he's just indestructible. But, um, that was such a good, like court court case. i love that. Yeah, that was fun. I mean, i do think it's interesting. My secret theory on Amber, Amber Heard is that she's basically, I think all three of her children Elons.
01:21:46
Speaker
oh And I think that she's ah basically was always protected and kind of living off his. There's actually some pretty substantial evidence that this is true. People don't like to talk about this, but this we can leave the pod with this little conspiracy theory.
01:22:01
Speaker
Like, for instance, Elon paid $500,000
01:22:08
Speaker
um like charity for abused women, like during, ah she had promised that she would give x amount of dollars to this charity. And apparently she like was gonna give it over the course of, I don't know, whatever, like four years. And she like didn't have enough money to like make one of the payments and Elon paid it.
01:22:27
Speaker
um So there's that. They were in a romantic relationship for a couple of years before she dated Johnny Depp. And then all three of her children have been surrogate babies.
01:22:37
Speaker
Okay. and they have really insane names.
Trial Relevance and Media Focus
01:22:42
Speaker
Like, let me read them to you. So one's name is Una.
01:22:51
Speaker
and then the twin, and then she has twins named Agnes and Ocean. And now she's living, so' the and they're all born via surrogacy. And now she's living, which is very Elon. And now she's living like,
01:23:06
Speaker
seemingly a pretty like you know comfortable life in Madrid. yeah And she's not working. and you know so got she get fat or is she still attractive?
01:23:17
Speaker
There's really no like recent pictures of her. Okay. i felt like I felt like once... i she was like obviously extremely like physically attractive, but I felt like she looked so ugly during the court proceedings, even though she's pretty.
01:23:36
Speaker
I feel like, i don't know. Like I feel like when someone has a really ugly personality like that, it makes them ugly. I don't know. It's weird. I have a soft spot for her cause she's an Austin, Texas girl. and Okay.
01:23:51
Speaker
um Well, I guess the most important point to end on is like, did I manage to convince you? Not that he, not that Harvey Weinstein isn't maybe a rapist, but like that he shouldn't be in jail for these. Oh yeah. I mean, you convinced you convinced me that he like it should not be, um, you convinced me that he should not have been convicted. Yes.
01:24:15
Speaker
Okay. Well, that's good. I'm, I'm, I'm curious to see what's going to happen with this, um, retrial.
Diddy Trial Comparison and Podcast Wrap-Up
01:24:21
Speaker
Cause it's like going on at the minute and like, There's not really a lot of news about it. Like, I've been trying to, like, read up and... No one cares.
01:24:29
Speaker
No gives a shit. The Diddy trial's happening in New York right now. That's going to get way more press. Yeah. no um Maybe we'll do a Diddy special. No, that's true. Now Diddy is...
01:24:41
Speaker
So I guess there is still some me too stuff going on, but it sounds like the Diddy stuff is like so beyond that. It's like, Oh yeah. It seems crazy. um All right. All right. um Twinkies. We'll see you guys soon.
01:24:54
Speaker
Yeah. Love you. Bye.