There have now been more than a week of horrifyingly detailed investigative reports in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and elsewhere -- including additional firsthand accounts -- of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s serial predatory sexual misconduct, which includes, as of our publication, about 50 reports of harassment, assault, or rape. Significant questions remain about how Weinstein was able to create and maintain a culture of silence around his abuses for decades.
Media Matters has attempted to map out all reported incidents of Weinstein’s misconduct, as well as known previous media attempts to report on Weinstein’s patterns of predatory behavior and legal and industry efforts to address Weinstein’s ongoing abuse or attempts to hide it from the public.
1980 - 1999
1980: Paula Wachowiak, a production assistant on Weinstein’s first film, The Burning, told The Buffalo News in an October 15, 2017, article that she was harassed by Weinstein in a hotel room in 1980. Wachowiak said that Weinstein called her to the room to discuss a business matter, then appeared in a towel, which he then dropped, and asked her for a massage.
1984: Tomi-Ann Roberts told The New York Times she was sexually harassed by Weinstein in 1984 in a hotel room in New York City, where he had asked her to come for a business meeting, according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece. When the aspiring 20-year-old actress arrived at the room, Weinstein was naked in a bathtub and asked her to take off her clothes as well.
1984: A female crew member on the set of Weinstein’s film Playing for Keeps told the lead producer that in 1984, Weinstein had asked her to come to a hotel room for business, then forcibly kissed her and attempted to sexually assault her, according to an account the lead producer, Alan Brewer, gave in an October 14, 2017, Washington Post piece. Brewer also told the Post about a subsequent incident in which Weinstein physically assaulted him.
Late 1980s: British actress Lysette Anthony said that Weinstein raped her in her London home in the late 1980s. Anthony shared her account in an October 15, 2017, piece in The Sunday Times and reported the crime to London police. Police have confirmed they’re now investigating the assault report, along with three other reports of sexual assault given to the police by a different woman.
1990: Harvey Weinstein reached a legal settlement with a “young assistant” in New York, according to an October 5, 2017, New York Times piece.
1990: Forty-four-year-old actress Kate Beckinsale said in an October 12, 2017, Instagram post that Weinstein sexually harassed and threatened her for decades, beginning when she was 17, and that refusing his propositions hurt her career. People wrote, “Over the years, Beckinsale said she rejected his sexual advances numerous times — which she alleges often led to angry outbursts.”
1991: Former Weinstein Co. employee Laura Madden told The New York Times that Weinstein “prodded her for massages at hotels in Dublin and London beginning in 1991.” Madden told a co-worker about the incidents, including a “time she locked herself in the bathroom of his hotel room, sobbing,” according to the Times’ October 5, 2017, piece.
Early 1990s: A young woman left The Weinstein Co. in the early 1990s abruptly after an encounter with Weinstein and later received a settlement. The woman was supervised by Kathy DeClesis -- a former assistant to Weinstein’s brother, Bob -- who recounted the incident in The New York Times’ October 5, 2017, piece.
Early 1990s: Actress Rosanna Arquette told The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow, who published the story in an October 10, 2017, piece, that one evening in the early 1990s, she met Weinstein for dinner at a hotel to pick up a script. She was told to go to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and attempted to physically force her to give him a massage. She refused and was able to leave, but she told The New Yorker that she believes her career suffered as a result of refusing Weinstein.
Early 1990s: Louise Godbold wrote in an October 9, 2017, blog post that Weinstein trapped her in “an empty meeting room” in the early 1990s and begged for a massage. Godbold said she detailed the incident to a friend and an industry connection who both encouraged her to stay silent about the incident.
1990s: Actress Tara Subkoff told Variety on October 12, 2017, that Weinstein sexually harassed her at a film premiere party in the 1990s. Subkoff said that Weinstein offered her a role, then pulled her onto his lap and she could “feel that he had an erection.” He then asked her to “come outside with him and other things I don’t want to share, but it was implied that if I did not comply with doing what he asked me to do that I would not get the role that I had already been informally offered.” Subkoff left the party and her informal offer was revoked, she said.
1992: A former Miramax employee said that Weinstein raped her in the basement of his London offices in 1992. She told the the Daily Mail on October 15, 2017, that “I just felt mortified and ashamed – and that no one would believe me. He was incredibly well-connected, powerful and important – and I was just a nobody.”
1993: Actress Katherine Kendall told The New York Times that Weinstein sexually harassed her in 1993 at his apartment in New York. Weinstein invited Kendall, then 23 years old, to the apartment to pick something up after they attended an industry event together; when they arrived, he changed into a robe and asked for a massage before he “literally chased” Kendall around his apartment, according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece.
1994: Forty-five-year-old actress Gwyneth Paltrow told The New York Times that Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room when she was 22, inviting her there for a business meeting and then attempting to massage her and invite her into a bedroom. Weinstein later called her and admonished her for telling others about the incident. A young and fearful Paltrow continued working with Weinstein, telling the Times for its October 10, 2017, piece, “I was expected to keep the secret.”
1994-1995: Actress Florence Darel told Le Parisien on October 12, 2017, that Weinstein called her repeatedly in 1994 and 1995, asking her to meet him. In 1995, she said Weinstein asked her to meet him at a Paris hotel and she was encouraged by her agent to go. Darel said that Weinstein asked her to begin a sexual relationship with him, implying that she would need to do so if she wanted to work in the American film industry.
1995: British writer Liza Campbell says she met with Weinstein in a London hotel room in 1995 to discuss work, joined by several assistants, according to an October 8, 2017, piece in The Times of London. Later, the assistants “vanished” and Weinstein attempted to coerce her into taking a bath with him. Though the main exit was locked, Campbell was able to escape the room and “sprinted” away.
1995: Actress Mira Sorvino told The New Yorker that, in 1995, Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room at a Toronto film festival and attempted to pressure her into a physical relationship, calling her after the incident. Sorvino says she told a female employee at Miramax about the harassment, and the woman’s reaction “was shock and horror that I had mentioned it,” according to The New Yorker’s October 10, 2017, piece. Sorvino wrote in an October 11 Time article about her difficult decision to speak publicly about the harassment, saying, “When an article was rumored to be coming out over a decade ago, I was very happy — Weinstein might finally get his due. Seeing it quashed was discouraging. His power and influence seemed to translate into limitless impunity.”
1996: Actress Judith Godrèche told The New York Times that Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 1996. Following a business meeting, Weinstein asked the 24-year-old actress to his room, where he asked to give her a massage, then physically pressed against her and began removing her shirt. Godrèche was able to leave the room, and soon after, she called a female Miramax executive. The executive told Godrèeche “not to say anything, lest she hurt [her] film’s release.” “This is Miramax,” she said. “You can’t say anything,” according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece.
Circa 1997: Actress Ashley Judd told The New York Times that, as she was shooting a film released in 1997, Weinstein invited her into his hotel room in Beverly Hills under the auspice of a business meeting, before appearing in a bathrobe and asking her for a massage or to watch him take a shower. “I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” Judd said, according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece.
1997: Weinstein reached a legal settlement in 1997 with actress Rose McGowan following an incident in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival, according to The New York Times’ October 5, 2017, piece. McGowan signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of the settlement, a common practice wielded by Weinstein as a way to silence his victims, preventing them from speaking publicly about the abuse -- but she has since said Weinstein raped her. McGowan also recently tweeted that she had entered into a show production deal with Amazon before Weinstein got involved with the company, at which point, she said, she told an Amazon executive multiple times that he had raped her, but she was dismissed. Amazon soon dropped her show.
1997: Actress Asia Argento told The New Yorker that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1997 in a hotel room in France. For years afterward, Weinstein sent gifts and money to Argento, who said she felt obligated not to report the assault and to acquiesce to his sexual advances, according to The New Yorker’s October 10, 2017, piece.
Fall 1998: According to The New York Times’ October 5, 2017, piece, Zelda Perkins, a London-based assistant, confronted Weinstein about repeated harassment that she and colleagues had experienced. Perkins threatened to initiate legal action or make public statements about Weinstein’s misconduct should it continue. Weinstein reached a legal settlement with her.
Circa 1998: Thirty-eight-year-old filmmaker Sarah Polley said that Weinstein called her to his office when she was 19 and acting in one of his films, and said that he could help her career if she agreed to begin a “close relationship” with him. Polley wrote about the incident in The New York Times on October 14, 2017, saying that, on her way to the office, her publicist at the time “looked at me and said: ‘I’m going in with you. And I’m not leaving your side.’ I knew everything I needed to know in that moment, and I was grateful.”
Late 1990s: Actress Angelina Jolie told The New York Times that Weinstein sexually harassed her in the late 1990s, making unwanted advances in a hotel room, according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece.
2000 - 2009
1999-2000: Writer Rebecca Traister wrote in an October 5, 2017, piece that she had heard stories about Weinstein’s serial predatory misconduct since she was an editorial assistant at Talk magazine, which he financed, in 1999. The following year, when Traister was working at the New York Observer, she encountered Weinstein at a party and tried to ask him a question related to a movie she was reporting on; Weinstein called her a “cunt” and physically assaulted her boyfriend, also a colleague, who was with her at the time, she said. Traister recalled that she had felt “the full force of Harvey Weinstein.”
2000: Asia Argento released the film Scarlet Diva, which she directed and wrote. In it, she appears in a scene depicting her assault by Weinstein; subsequently, others in the film industry approached her to share similar experiences, recognizing Weinstein’s pattern of misconduct. Argento told The New Yorker that, in her movie version, “I ran away.”
2000: Thirty-five-year-old actress Romola Garai said that when she was 18, Weinstein sexually harassed her in a London hotel room, according to an October 10, 2017, piece in The Guardian. Garai said Weinstein conducted a private audition for the then-18-year-old actress while wearing only a bathrobe and left her feeling “violated.”
Early 2000s: Actress Heather Graham wrote in an October 10, 2017, piece in Variety that, in the early 2000s, Weinstein had met with her and implied she had to have sex with him in order to secure a movie role. Graham said Weinstein also attempted to persuade her to meet him for a follow-up in a hotel.
2001: David Carr published a lengthy profile of Weinstein on December 3, 2001, titled “The Emperor Miramaximus,” in New York magazine. The profile did not mention reports of sexual misconduct by Weinstein, but focused instead on other instances of power abuse and bullying by the producer. Writer Rebecca Traister recently suggested Carr had been actively trying to report Weinstein’s sexual abuse for the article but was unable to nail the story.
2002: British actress Alice Evans said that Weinstein approached her at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and asked her to meet him in a bathroom, saying, “I want to touch your tits. Kiss you a little.” Evans wrote in The Telegraph on October 14, 2017, that Weinstein implied her the career of her then-boyfriend, Ioan Gruffudd, would suffer if she did not go with him. Evans wrote that she rejected Weinstein, and that neither she nor Gruffudd, now her husband, was ever considered for a Weinstein film again.
2003: Costume designer Dawn Dunning told The New York Times that Weinstein sexually harassed her in 2003, bringing the 24-year-old aspiring actress to a private hotel room and telling her he would sign contracts for a three-picture deal if she would agree to engaging in three-way sex with him, according to the Times’ October 10, 2017, piece.
2003: Italian model Samantha Panagrosso said that Weinstein sexually harassed her on a yacht during the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and subsequently sexually assaulted her. Panagrosso told the Daily Mail about several incidents in which Weinstein harassed her, as well as one incident of assault in which he appeared at her cabin “with baby oil and medicine” and then physically overpowered her and groped her, according to the October 14, 2017, piece.
2004: Former New York Times employee Sharon Waxman wrote on October 8, 2017 in TheWrap that she attempted to report on Weinstein’s misconduct in 2004, but her story was “gutted” by highers-up at the Times, under pressure from Weinstein. Waxman also said she was contacted personally by actors Matt Damon and Russell Crowe, who vouched for an Italian Miramax executive Waxman had been investigating because she had heard his “real job was to take care of Weinstein’s women needs.” She also wrote that Weinstein, “a major advertiser in the Times,” himself “visited the newsroom in person to make his displeasure known.” Waxman’s final, published piece focused only on the firing of the Italian Miramax executive and was “buried” in the culture section of the paper. Times editors have disputed Waxman’s account, suggesting that her reporting was not solid enough to publish at the time. Waxman subsequently left the Times to found the website TheWrap, but she did not publish her reporting on Weinstein at the new outlet.
2004: On October 11, 2017, longtime New York gossip writer Lloyd Grove wrote in The Daily Beast, where he now serves as editor at large, that after Weinstein’s divorce from his first spouse in 2004, Weinstein alternately flattered and threatened him in an attempt to coerce Grove into dropping an item about the divorce. Grove recounted that Weinstein “erupted, ‘I’m the scariest motherfucker you’ll ever have as an enemy in this town!’”
Summer 2004: Aspiring actress Lucia Evans told The New Yorker that Weinstein called her repeatedly in the summer of 2004 until she agreed to meet with him to discuss business opportunities at the Miramax office in New York. Evans said Weinstein then sexually assaulted her, forcing her to perform oral sex on him. “I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,’” she said, according to The New Yorker’s October 10, 2017, piece. Evans said Weinstein later attempted to call her again.
2005: In a red carpet interview in August 2005, singer and actress Courtney Love advised young women in the industry: “If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons, don’t go,” according to an October 14, 2017, TMZ post. Before making the statement, Love said, “I’ll get libeled if I say it.” In a recent tweet linking to the TMZ post, Love said, “Although I wasn't one of his victims, I was eternally banned by [Creative Arts Agency] for speaking out against #HarveyWeinstein.”
2007: TV news anchor Lauren Sivan told HuffPost that in 2007, Weinstein trapped her “in the hallway of a restaurant that was closed to the public and masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated.” Sivan was shocked by the incident and recounted it to friends at the time, according to HuffPost’s October 6, 2017, piece. She did not further address the misconduct out of fear.
2008: Actor/writer/comedian Sarah Ann Masse recently told Variety that, in 2008, she was interviewing to serve as a nanny for Weinstein’s children when he sexually harassed her at his house in Connecticut. Masse said Weinstein conducted the nanny interview and later hugged her while wearing only “boxer shorts and an undershirt,” according to the October 11, 2017, Variety piece.
2008: Aspiring screenwriter Louisette Geiss said Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, changing into a bathrobe and asking her to watch him masturbate after she pitched a script to him. In an on-camera interview with The Washington Post published on October 14, 2017, Geiss said Weinstein attempted to physically overpower her and offered her film deals if she would stay in the room.
2010 - 2016
Circa 2010: Actress and director Lina Esco said that, “around 2010,” Weinstein met her for a business dinner, then urged her to kiss him. “He tried to insinuate that everything would be easier for me if I went along,” Esco said in an October 14, 2017, Washington Post piece.
2010: Actress Emma de Caunes told The New Yorker that, a few months after meeting Weinstein in 2010, he asked her to a business meeting in a hotel in Paris, where he persuaded her to accompany him to his room. Once there, Weinstein took off his clothes and “demanded that she lie on the bed and told her that many other women had done so before her,” according to the October 10, 2017, piece. De Caunes was able to escape the room. Weinstein called her repeatedly afterward and sent her gifts.
2010-2011: Actress Eva Green said she was harassed by Weinstein in a Paris hotel room, where she said “he behaved inappropriately and I had to push him off” and that she was left “shocked and disgusted.” Green issued a statement about the harassment to Variety on October 14, 2017, following her mother’s discussion of the incident on a radio program a day earlier. Green’s mother, actress Marlene Jobert, said that the harassment occurred repeatedly “during 2010-2011.”
2010-2015: London police have confirmed they are investigating reports that Weinstein sexually assaulted a woman in Westminster in 2010 and 2011, and in Camden in 2015.
January 2011: Actress Jessica Barth told The New Yorker that after meeting Weinstein at a Golden Globes party in January 2011, she joined him for a business meeting at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Weinstein subsequently asked her to meet in his room and, “in the conversation that followed, he alternated between offering to cast her in a film and demanding a naked massage in bed,” according to the October 10, 2017, piece. Barth refused and was eventually able to leave the room, at which point Weinstein both insulted her and offered her opportunities to meet with other executives.
2012: Actress Léa Seydoux told The Guardian for an October 11, 2017, piece that in 2012, Weinstein attempted to sexually assault her in a Paris hotel room.
Circa 2013: Aspiring actress Chelsea Skidmore told The Washington Post that, around 2013, she met Weinstein for tea in a Beverly Hills hotel lobby, joined by two assistants. The assistants were “soon dismissed” and Weinstein brought Skidmore upstairs to his room, where he asked for a massage and then masturbated in front of her. Skidmore told the Post this was the first of at least four incidents in which Weinstein harassed Skidmore and exposed himself; she said he also forced her to stand in front of a mirror and watch him masturbate in 2016. “He forces himself on you, talks you into it and doesn’t leave you with an option,” she said, according to the Post’s October 14, 2017, piece.
February 24, 2013: While presenting at the 2013 Oscars, comedian Seth MacFarlane joked that the five nominees for best supporting actress “no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” MacFarlane recently wrote on Twitter that his comment was in reference to Jessica Barth's report of sexual harassment by Weinstein in 2011. Barth had shared her story privately with MacFarlane prior to his Oscars hosting gig.
2014: In 2014, Weinstein invited Weinstein Co. temporary employee Emily Nestor to a Beverly Hills hotel room and told her he would help her career if she engaged in sexual acts, according to accounts Nestor shared with colleagues. Nestor shared her first-hand account with The New Yorker for its October 10, 2017, piece; she told reporter Ronan Farrow that Weinstein had bragged that he’d never “had to do anything like Bill Cosby,” presumably referring to Cosby’s pattern of drugging women before assaulting them. Farrow wrote, “Nestor had a conversation with company officials about the matter but didn’t pursue it further: the officials said that Weinstein would be informed of anything she told them, a practice not uncommon in businesses the size of the Weinstein Company. Several former Weinstein employees told me that the company’s human-resources department was utterly ineffective; one female executive described it as ‘a place where you went to when you didn’t want anything to get done.’” A senior executive later contacted Nestor on LinkedIn and expressed concern.
Circa 2014-2015: Kim Masters, editor at large at The Hollywood Reporter, told The Washington Post that the magazine “tried ‘really hard’ to publish a report on Weinstein’s sexual behavior a few years ago. But the source backed out, leaving it without on-the-record corroboration of festering rumors,” according to the October 14, 2017, piece.
2015: At a Beverly Hills hotel, a female assistant said Weinstein “badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her ‘crying and very distraught,’” according to a memo written by former Weinstein Co. employee Lauren O’Connor months later that The New York Times quoted in its October 5, 2017, piece.
2015: A female employee at The Weinstein Co. “quit after complaining of being forced to arrange what she believed to be assignations for Mr. Weinstein,” according to the October 5, 2017, New York Times report.
March 2015: According to the October 5, 2017, New York Times story, Weinstein invited model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez to his office in New York for a business meeting late on a Friday night and “grabbed her breasts after asking if they were real and put his hands up her skirt.” Battilana reported the assault to the New York Police Department (NYPD) and, according to The New Yorker, subsequently cooperated with the police to obtain secretly recorded audio in which Weinstein admits to groping her, saying, “I’m used to that.” After a two-week investigation, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, declined to bring charges against Weinstein, saying in a statement that “a criminal charge is not supported.” The Times noted, “Mr. Weinstein was represented in talks with the district attorney’s office by two defense lawyers with ties to Mr. Vance: Daniel S. Connolly, a former Manhattan prosecutor, and Elkan Abramowitz, who is Mr. Vance’s former law partner and a donor to his campaign.” The New York Post recently reported that Abramowitz gave a new contribution to Vance shortly after the district attorney declined to press charges.
March-April 2015: Gossip media including The Daily Beast, Gawker, The New York Post, and the Daily Mail helped Weinstein smear Battilana in March and April of 2015 by reporting on her previous reports of sexual misconduct against other powerful men, among other smears. The New Yorker and, later, The Washington Post both suggested Weinstein may have worked to plant negative information about Battilana in at least some of these publications, a practice he had bragged about.
March 30, 2015: Writer Jennifer Senior and conservative pundit John Podhoretz tweeted on March 30, 2015, about what Senior called Weinstein’s “despicable open secret” following news of the NYPD investigation into his assault of Battilana.
April 2, 2015: Gawker website Defamer published an item in April 2015 asking for tips about “Harvey Weinstein’s ‘open secret,’” citing the tweets from Senior and Podhoretz. The Defamer piece referred to several incidents and patterns of predatory behavior eventually reported on in The New York Times and The New Yorker. It also referred to blind items, articles, and comments about Weinstein’s misconduct posted to gossip blogs and their comment sections beginning in 2009.
2015: According to a recent report from The New York Times’ Megan Twohey, The Weinstein Co. and its board -- which includes Weinstein’s brother, Bob -- were made aware of “three or four confidential settlements” with women who said Weinstein sexually harassed them as early as 2015, when Weinstein’s company contract was up for renewal. During the contract negotiations, Weinstein did not allow the company’s lawyers to review his personnel file but instead retained an outside lawyer.
September 2015: Weinstein’s personal lawyer completed a review of his personnel file and sent a letter to the Weinstein Co. board saying it was “legally safe” to continue employing his client. In his review, the lawyer reportedly encountered one 2014 complaint, from temporary employee Emily Nestor. It is unclear if the board was told about Nestor’s report at the time.
2015: Weinstein Co. board member Lance Maerov reportedly pushed for a clearer company policy on sexual harassment, which was created. Weinstein’s renewed contract also reportedly included a new clause detailing “costly fines” should the company have to pay a settlement or misconduct.
October 6, 2015: Ashley Judd publicly recounted her sexual harassment by Weinstein for the first time in Variety, but she chose not to disclose his name at the time.
November 2015: Weinstein Co. employee Lauren O’Connor wrote a memo detailing repeated sexual harassment by Weinstein. She wrote, “I am a 28 year old woman trying to make a living and a career. Harvey Weinstein is a 64 year old, world famous man and this is his company. The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.” O’Connor’s memo, penned in November, focused on a two-year period in which she said she feared that she and others had been facilitating “liaisons with ‘vulnerable women who hope he will get them work.’” According to The New York Times, the memo’s statements reflect a larger trend in which numerous assistants were asked to participate in setting up meetings in which harassment or assault may have occurred.
2015: Weinstein made settlements with Battilana and O’Connor. O’Connor withdrew her complaint as part of the settlement and submitted a letter thanking Weinstein “for the opportunity to learn about the entertainment industry.”
Circa 2016: Lawyer Lisa Bloom began working as Weinstein’s legal adviser on “gender and power dynamics,” at some point in the year preceding the October 5, 2017, New York Times report.
October 2016: Actress Rose McGowan posted a series of tweets on October 12, 2016, recounting a rape by “a studio head” without disclosing his name. A year later she tweeted that it was “HW” and then referred to “Weinstein.”
December 2016: Reporter Ronan Farrow began a 10-month investigation into reports of Weinstein’s serial sexual harassment and assault that would culminate in an October 10, 2017, article published in The New Yorker. In the months before Farrow’s piece was published, Weinstein’s lawyers contacted several of the women who spoke to Farrow about harassment or assault by Weinstein, as well as several current or former employees who had cooperated with the story, and Weinstein “asked [actress Asia] Argento to meet with a private investigator and give testimony on [Weinstein’s] behalf.” Farrow also said he was personally threatened with a lawsuit from Weinstein during the course of reporting the story.
2017
January 2017: In January 2017, Farrow recorded an on-camera interview with Rose McGowan about her assault by Weinstein; at the time, he was trying to report the story for NBC. McGowan later had to revoke consent to use her name and camera appearance in the piece due to legal pressure from Weinstein stemming from the terms of her 1997 settlement with the producer.
February 2017: Farrow’s investigative report on Weinstein’s serial sexual misconduct was “originally targeted to air on NBC in February, just as Hollywood was gearing up for the Oscars,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
March 2017: Sources told HuffPost that Farrow had the 2015 audio recording of Harvey Weinstein admitting to groping Ambra Battilana as early as March.
April 7, 2017: Lawyer Lisa Bloom announced that her book about Trayvon Martin was being made into a miniseries produced by Weinstein.
April 2017: Sources told HuffPost that, by April, Farrow had been told his Weinstein investigation was not “sufficient for a televised story,” and he instead “prepared a lengthy text story” for NBC News’ website. Farrow was then told that story would not run.
Summer 2017: Ronan Farrow’s non-exclusive contributor contract with NBC expired and was renegotiated over the summer.
Summer 2017: Reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began working on the New York Times investigation into Weinstein’s patterns of predatory sexual misconduct; the investigation would be published “about four months” later, on October 5, 2017.
July 2017: Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Ronan Farrow had the 2015 audio recording of Harvey Weinstein admitting to groping Ambra Battilana as early as July. A later report in HuffPost said Farrow had actually acquired the audio in March and had conducted eight interviews with women saying Weinstein harassed or assaulted them by late July. At this point, sources say, Farrow was told the story was “reportable.”
August 2017: Sources told HuffPost that NBC had control of Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein “as recently as August,” at which point the company expressed “concerns related to the story’s sourcing.” The Daily Beast added that NBC’s decision to pass on the report followed “months” of careful internal vetting of interviews and legal review by several NBC executives that lasted for much of the summer. It included the “unusual” review of Kimberley D. Harris, executive vice president and general counsel of NBCUniversal, shortly before the piece was spiked. CNN added that NBC News chairman Andy Lack was also involved in the decision.
August 2017: Farrow secured an on-camera silhouette interview with a woman who said Weinstein had raped her, according to multiple sources who spoke with HuffPost. He had already “been told by [NBC] to stop reporting on” the piece at this point. HuffPost added, “The network insisted he not use an NBC News crew for the interview, and neither was he to mention his NBC News affiliation. And so that was how Ronan Farrow wound up paying out of his own pocket for a camera crew to film an interview.”
August 2017: Farrow was allowed by NBC to bring his reporting elsewhere, and he soon pitched The New Yorker’s David Remnick. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that “Weinstein’s legal team attempted to block Farrow from taking material that he gathered at NBC News to The New Yorker.” HuffPost reported that Weinstein’s legal team also argued at both NBC and The New Yorker that Farrow had a conflict of interest in reporting on Weinstein: Weinstein has worked with Farrow’s estranged father, Woody Allen. (In 2014, Farrow’s sister Dylan wrote in an open letter in The New York Times saying that Allen had sexually abused her.)
October 3, 2017: Weinstein and his legal team were contacted by The New York Times with details about its forthcoming investigation against decades of his misconduct. The Weinstein camp was given two days to respond ahead of the Times’ publication. Weinstein and his lawyers did not contend that any of the details in the story were inaccurate.
October 2017: Just as The New York Times was preparing to publish its investigation into harassment by Weinstein, The Washington Post was offered “negative information” about one of the women who spoke to the Times, according to media columnist Margaret Sullivan. “The timing could, of course, be coincidental, but seems suspicious and tracks with Weinstein’s well-known practices,” Sullivan wrote on October 11, 2017.
October 5, 2017: In The New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey published the first reported accounts of women who say they were harassed by Weinstein. The report detailed “previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.” It also included information about at least eight settlements Weinstein paid in relation to sexual misconduct. In interviews with the Times, “eight women described varying behavior by Mr. Weinstein: appearing nearly or fully naked in front of them, requiring them to be present while he bathed or repeatedly asking for a massage or initiating one himself. The women, typically in their early or middle 20s and hoping to get a toehold in the film industry, said he could switch course quickly — meetings and clipboards one moment, intimate comments the next. One woman advised a peer to wear a parka when summoned for duty as a layer of protection against unwelcome advances.”
October 5, 2017: Weinstein issued a bizarre statement of apology following the Times report, comparing himself to rapper Jay-Z while also apologizing for his actions. Weinstein said he would seek help and would spend more time focused on activism against the National Rifle Association.
October 5, 2017: Weinstein told TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman that his “apology was sincere” while also threatening to sue the Times for defamation. Legal advisor Lisa Bloom, in her own statement, contended that several of the reports about Weinstein were false. She also told members of his company’s board that Weinstein would follow through on a Times lawsuit and that new reports would emerge with photos of accusers seeming “very friendly” with Weinstein. Weinstein’s lawyer, Charles Harder -- who led the case that brought down Gawker Media last year -- said he was preparing a case against the Times.
October 5, 2017: ABC and CBS covered the New York Times report on Weinstein in their nightly newscasts, but NBC did not. Sources told HuffPost that NBC News President Noah Oppenheim made the final decision not to include a Weinstein segment in the newscast, claiming Weinstein was not a well-known figure.
October 6, 2017: One-third of The Weinstein Co.’s all-male board resigned. The remaining four members of the board -- including Bob Weinstein -- announced that Harvey Weinstein “would take an indefinite leave of absence immediately” as an outside lawyer began investigating.
October 6, 2017: Bob Weinstein sent a worried email to his brother’s legal adviser, Lisa Bloom, writing that Democrats were returning donations and women’s organizations and people in the entertainment industry were speaking out against his brother.
October 6, 2017: Yashar Ali published in HuffPost an on-the-record account from Lauren Sivan about Weinstein trapping her in a hallway and masturbating in front of her in 2007. Sivan told HuffPost that Weinstein called her the following day, asking her to get together soon.
October 5-7, 2017: Weinstein reportedly sent an email to his brother and other members of The Weinstein Co. board “in the waning hours” of the week, alleging that they knew of sexual harassment settlements. The Hollywood Reporter’s Janice Min reported on another email sent by Weinstein prior to his firing in which he begged Hollywood CEOs to defend him, saying, “Do not let me be fired.”
October 7, 2017: The New York Times called on Weinstein to release from nondisclosure agreements the women who’ve reached legal settlements with him for sexual misconduct. Spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha referenced Weinstein’s public non-apology -- in which he said, “I so respect women” and mentioned a scholarship fund he started to support women directors -- in a statement, saying, “As a supporter of women, he must support their right to speak openly about these issues of gender and power.”
October 7, 2017: MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski tweeted that she would not go through with a three-book deal with Weinstein Books unless Weinstein resigned.
October 7, 2017: President Donald Trump, who was recorded bragging about committing sexual assault in 2005 and has been reported for harassment and assault by multiple women, told reporters he has “known Harvey Weinstein for a long time” and was “not at all surprised” by the reports.
October 7, 2017: Lisa Bloom announced that she had resigned as Weinstein’s legal adviser. Lanny Davis, another lawyer for Weinstein and previously special counsel to President Bill Clinton, resigned as well. Another member of The Weinstein Co.’s board, Paul Tudor Jones, also resigned. In the evening, Weinstein was notified by email that he was fired from the company.
October 8, 2017: The Weinstein Co. announced that Harvey Weinstein had been fired.
October 8, 2017: In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rose McGowan called on the entire Weinstein Company board to resign “effective immediately.”
October 9, 2017: The large entertainment industry union Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) released a statement condemning Weinstein’s reported misconduct as “abhorrent and unacceptable” and saying that abusive behavior in Hollywood “is more prevalent than our industry acknowledges.”
October 9, 2017: Actresses Meryl Streep, Dame Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, and Glenn Close issued public statements condemning Weinstein.
October 9, 2017: Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Harvey Weinstein’s credits would be removed from all Weinstein Co. TV shows, saying that the company “reached out to multiple networks and granted them permission to remove Weinstein's name from the credits in the wake of his ouster from the company.” The report also said the company was considering changing its name.
October 10, 2017: In a second article by The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor, along with reporter Rachel Abrams, five more women, including prominent actresses Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, publicly disclosed sexual harassment by Weinstein.
October 10, 2017: Tina Brown, who started Talk magazine with Weinstein’s company in 1998, wrote in The New York Times that Weinstein “spent most of the hours of his working day ensuring that all the bad stories went away, killed, evaporated, spun into something diametrically its opposite.” Brown alleged that there were many “hacks writing gossip columns or entertainment coverage were on the Miramax payroll with a ‘consultancy’ or a ‘development deal.’”
October 10, 2017: A lengthy article by NBC contributor Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker publicly reported for the first time three reports of sexual assault committed by Weinstein, as well as additional reports of sexual harassment spanning decades. Sixteen current and former Weinstein staffers spoke with Farrow about witnessing or having knowledge of his patterns of sexual misconduct. The New Yorker piece also included 2015 audio obtained by actress Battilana and the NYPD in which Weinstein admitted to groping Battilana. Farrow wrote in his piece that Weinstein’s lawyers had contacted several women who spoke with Farrow, and one actress -- later revealed to be Rose McGowan -- was forced to withdraw her name from the piece because of “the legal angle” coming at her.
October 10, 2017: Farrow appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss his article in The New Yorker. When Maddow pressed Farrow about why his article ultimately ran in the magazine rather than on NBC, Farrow contended, “I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier. And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that. And it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.”
October 10, 2017: In response to the new reports of harassment and assault in The New Yorker, Weinstein’s spokesperson gave a statement to the magazine in which Weinstein denied “any allegations of non-consensual sex.”
October 10, 2017: Bob Weinstein and Weinstein Co. president David Glasser reportedly told employees in a video conference call that they were, as The New York Times described it, “shocked by the allegations and unaware of payments made to women who complained of unwanted touching, sexual harassment and other over-the-line behavior.” Weinstein and other remaining members of the board also issued a public statement saying they were unaware of the new allegations of extreme sexual misconduct and sexual assault reported in The New Yorker.
October 10, 2017: Actor Ben Affleck, a frequent collaborator of Weinstein’s, issued a statement calling the producer’s reported misconduct “sick.” Rose McGowan called Affleck a liar, saying he had known about Weinstein’s misconduct. Variety subsequently reported that actress Hilarie Burton said Affleck had groped her in 2003.
October 10, 2017: Following the New Yorker reports of rape and sexual assault committed by Weinstein, Rose McGowan tweeted, “Now am I allowed to say rapist”?
October 10, 2017: Former President Barack Obama, who had previously received political contributions from Weinstein, and former first lady Michelle Obama issued a statement saying they were “disgusted” by reports of Weinstein’s serial sexual misconduct. Their daughter Malia had interned at Weinstein’s company in 2017. Hillary Clinton, another of many prominent Democrats to have benefited from Weinstein’s fundraising, issued a statement condemning the serial sexual predator as well.
October 11, 2017: Weinstein Co. board member Lance Maerov told The New York Times that he did know in 2015 of settlements made by Weinstein but "assumed they were used to cover up consensual affairs” and was assured at the time that no company money was used and no further complaints were pending.
October 11, 2017: Actress Cara Delevingne posted a note to Instagram detailing her sexual harassment by Weinstein over the course of several unspecified years.
October 11, 2017: By October 11, Politico wrote that “each high-profile Democrat to receive money from Weinstein had made plans to direct it elsewhere, aside from recent retirees like former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — who still denounced him” and noted that the Democratic National Committee pledged to donate a small amount of total donations it had received from Weinstein. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) later announced he would donate the full amount Weinstein had contributed to him, after first pledging to donate only a portion of the money.
October 11, 2017: An NBC source refuted Farrow’s claims that NBC may have passed on his Weinstein investigation under pressure, instead telling The Daily Beast that Farrow’s early reporting, at the time it was presented to NBC News, “didn’t meet the standard to go forward with a story.” Instead, according to the source, NBC permitted Farrow -- who has a non-exclusive contributor agreement with NBC -- to bring his work to a print publication, and said that the early reporting was “nowhere close to what ultimately ran” in The New Yorker. NBC News president Noah Oppenheim reiterated this stance in a previously scheduled employee town hall meeting the same day. Other sources at NBC told CNN’s Brian Stelter, however, that “Ronan was basically told to stop working on this” and described the decision by NBC as “indefensible” and a “stand down order.” The Daily Beast noted that Weinstein “had enjoyed a long business relationship with NBC Universal, and Universal Pictures produced both his seven-Oscar Shakespeare in Love in 1998 and 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, for instance, while he had co-produced the hit reality-TV show Project Runway for the NBC-owned Bravo channel.”
October 11, 2017: Twitter suspended Rose McGowan’s account for 12 hours amid her online activism about Weinstein. A Twitter spokesperson told a reporter the following day the McGowan had tweeted a private phone number in violation of Twitter’s policies, triggering a protocol (that’s now been called into question) in which her entire account was temporarily suspended. After her suspension was lifted, McGowan tweeted about telling an Amazon executive about her rape and being dismissed.
October 11, 2017: New York Times media writer Jim Rutenberg reported that Executive Editor Dean Baquet said he was approached by Weinstein “a few times” during the course of Kantor and Twohey’s reporting to discuss the article, but Baquet “rebuffed” him, as Rutenberg put it. Baquet also told Rutenberg that Weinstein’s company was a Times advertiser, but that the paper was fortunately large enough that advertising money was not a consideration.
October 12, 2017: ABC News published a video Weinstein had recorded the day before in which he says he has “got to get help” and asks for “a second chance” because “we all make mistakes.” ABC reported that Weinstein then left Los Angeles for “a rehabilitation clinic for behavioral issues including sex addiction.”
October 12, 2017: Claire Forlani posted a statement to Twitter detailing repeated unddated incidents of sexual harassment by Weinstein, saying, “Nothing happened to me with Harvey , by that I mean , I escaped 5 times.” Forlani also wrote that she regretted declining to participate in Farrow’s New Yorker story, saying she was advised by male colleagues not to speak out.
October 12, 2017: TMZ obtained Weinstein’s company contract, negotiated in 2015, and reported that the document “says if [Weinstein] gets sued for sexual harassment or any other ‘misconduct’ that results in a settlement or judgment against TWC, all Weinstein has to do is pay what the company's out, along with a fine, and he's in the clear.”
October 12, 2017: Entertainment agents told Deadline that they no longer wanted to work with Weinstein’s company, even as the company made moves to change its name and scrub Harvey Weinstein credits from projects.
October 12, 2017: The New York Police Department confirmed that it was opening an investigation into Weinstein, reportedly spurred by the 2004 sexual assault report shared publicly in The New Yorker by Lucia Evans. The London police force confirmed it is investigating an incident of alleged sexual assault that occurred in the 1980s, and British media said Weinstein is the alleged perpetrator of the incident.
October 13, 2017: Spurred by the Weinstein reports, New York state lawmakers introduced new language to an existing bill that would prohibit employers from using nondisclosure agreements to prevent employees from discussing instances of sexual harassment or misconduct.
October 13, 2017: The Wall Street Journal reported that The Weinstein Co. was considering either a sale or complete shutdown, but that it was “unlikely” to continue operating as an independent entity.
October 13, 2017: Actress Angie Everhart called into a southern California radio show and told the hosts on air about an incident on a boat at the Venice Film Festival (she didn’t specify which year) in which she woke up to find Weinstein standing above her, masturbating and blocking the door. Everhart said that once Weinstein finished, he told her not to say anything about the incident to anyone because she was “a really nice girl.” Everhart said she still told everybody on the boat but that nothing was done.
October 13, 2017: Actress Minka Kelly posted an account to Instagram saying Weinstein had met her in a hotel restaurant, after she refused to meet in his room, and offered her “a lavish life filled with trips around the world on private planes” if she would agree to be his girlfriend. Kelly wrote that, when she declined, Weinstein asked her not to mention the exchange to anyone. She said, “I'm sorry for obliging his orders to be complicit in protecting his behavior, which he obviously knew was wrong or he wouldn’t have asked me not to tell anyone in the first place. For making him feel ok about the gross things he was saying and that I felt my only route was to say I was flattered. For not insisting that my reps never allow anyone to take a meeting in a hotel room (with him or anyone else), because I honestly don’t know what might have happened if I’d just showed up as originally scheduled.”
October 14, 2017: Bob Weinstein claimed in a phone interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he was unaware of the scope of his brother’s serial predatory misconduct and described the aftermath as a “waking nightmare.” Weinstein declined to discuss any specific reports of his brother’s behavior or the negotiation of his brother’s employment contract in 2015, which was modified to specifically address potential settlements related to misconduct.
October 14, 2017: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences called an emergency session and voted overwhelmingly to “immediately expel” Weinstein.
October 14, 2017: NBC’s Saturday Night Live addressed the Weinstein reports multiple times in its broadcast after failing to acknowledge the reports the previous week. The previous week, NBC’s Lorne Michaels said in response to questions about why Weinstein sketches were cut that the situation was a “New York thing,” echoing a similar statement by NBC News President Noah Oppenheim. A source told The New York Times that sketches were shelved after a tepid response from the audience during a dress rehearsal.
October 15, 2017: Director Woody Allen, whose daughter Dylan wrote publicly in 2014 that she was abused by Allen as a child, and who continues to make high-profile films in Hollywood and work with major entertainers, issued a statement to the BBC saying he felt “sad for Harvey” and that he hoped the Weinstein reports would not lead to a “witch hunt atmosphere” in the entertainment industry. He has since attempted to clarify his remarks.
October 15, 2017: Attorney Charles Harder, most well-known for litigating the case that gutted Gawker Media, announced that he had left Weinstein’s legal team.
October 15, 2017: French president Emmanuel Macron announced “that he has asked the relevant authorities to strip Harvey Weinstein of his highly coveted Légion d’Honneur award,” during a televised interview, according to The Washington Post.
October 15, 2017: Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault, suggesting that people who read the tweet and have experienced harassment or assault reply with “me too.” The hashtag #metoo began trending, and actresses and “an onslaught of women -- some famous and many not -- tweeted “Me too” and shared their experiences.”
October 16, 2017: The Weinstein Co. announced that it had reached a financing deal with the private equity firm Colony Capital that would allow the studio to “stay afloat in the short term,” according to CNN, and that it was negotiating a potential sale to Colony. The firm is owned by Tom Barrack, a close confidant to Trump and the chairman of Trump’s private Presidential Inaugural Committee. CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “His involvement on Monday provided undeniable intrigue, given that he's helping to rescue a company paralyzed by a sexual harassment scandal -- and that Trump has faced harassment allegations as well.”