Harvey Weinstein will sue the New York Times over their explosive report detailing decades of alleged sexual harassment at the Miramax and Weinstein Company co-founder’s hands, according to Weinstein’s attorney, Charles Harder. But in good news, they will donate any winnings from the lawsuit to “women’s organizations.” Why, thank you so much.
Harder, who is currently representing multiple clients in lawsuits against Gizmodo Media Group and represented Hulk Hogan in his case against Gawker, gave the following in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter:
“The New York Times published today a story that is saturated with false and defamatory statements about Harvey Weinstein. It relies on mostly hearsay accounts and a faulty report, apparently stolen from an employee personnel file, which has been debunked by 9 different eyewitnesses. We sent the Times the facts and evidence, but they ignored it and rushed to publish. We are preparing the lawsuit now. All proceeds will be donated to women’s organizations.”
Bafflingly, Weinstein released two statements to the New York Times, in neither of them did he deny the claims against him outright. (They were however denied by his other attorney, Lisa Bloom, who said, “he denies many of the accusations as patently false.”) As he said in his second statement:
I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.
I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office—or out of it. To anyone.
I realized some time ago that I needed to be a better person and my interactions with the people I work with have changed. I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.
What’s the strategy here? Unclear. What is clear, we’ve since learned, is that Weinstein also took the statement as an opportunity to invent a Jay Z lyric.