Screenwriter close to Harvey Weinstein declares ‘everybody ... knew’ what the producer was up to

Movies
Oct. 17, 2017, 10:13 a.m.

Screenwriter close to Harvey Weinstein declares ‘everybody ... knew’ what the producer was up to

Nardine Saad

Screenwriter Scott Rosenberg went on the record about Harvey Weinstein’s “reprehensible” open secret, pulling back the curtain on the disgraced producer’s reputed behavior and why the industry overlooked it.

The writer, who worked on “Con Air” and “High Fidelity,” worked closely with brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein from the mid-’90s to the early 2000s — an era that included several of the producers’ beloved and award-winning films at their previous studio, Miramax.

It was also an era in which many of the former studio mogul’s accusers allege that he sexually harassed or assaulted them. Harvey Weinstein has since been fired from the Weinstein Co., ejected from the Motion Picture Academy and is under scrutiny at the Producers Guild and by several police departments in the wake of the bombshell allegations, several of which he denied.

FULL COVERAGE: The Harvey Weinstein scandal

In an expletive-filled novella posted on Facebook on Monday (re-published here), Rosenberg detailed the embarrassment of riches that came along with the studio boss’ success and asserted — at least five times — that “everybody-[expletive]-knew” about Weinstein’s illicit activities. (It’s unclear if the post has since been deleted or was only viewable privately.)

Unlike those issuing a “sanctimonious denial and condemnation” of the producer’s decades of questionable behavior, Rosenberg apologized, saying he was “eternally sorry” and ashamed for being complicit by not saying or doing anything about it. Weinstein had been “wonderful to him,” and since he reaped the rewards, he kept his mouth shut.

Rosenberg explained that even if insiders didn’t know the degree of Weinstein’s alleged behavior, they were at least aware of “a certain pattern of overly-aggressive behavior that was rather dreadful.” He knew this because he “was there,” and Rosenberg talked about it with everyone, including colleagues, rival studio chiefs, journalists and politicians.

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But Weinstein was showing them the best of times, making their movies and regaling those in his inner circle with the spoils of success, he said, equating him to a generous monarch and a mafia don in his “fervent need for abject loyalty from his capos and soldiers.”

“Golden Geese don’t come along too often in one’s life... As the old joke goes: We needed the eggs,” he said, before apologizing. “Okay, maybe we didn’t NEED them. But we really, really, really, really LIKED them eggs. So we were willing to overlook what the Golden Goose was up to, in the murky shadows behind the barn....”