He was her boss, since she’d already filmed a sizeable role in the sci-fi thriller Phantoms, which was to be distributed by the Weinstein-owned Miramax..
He was also one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.. his name inspired fear in the industry..
A new film called Untouchable is documenting the role the media played in allowing monstrous behavior to go on..
The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta opens up about his lengthy 2002 profile of Weinstein in the magazine, and how he’d failed to include any abuse allegations in the piece—even though he’d managed to track down Perkins in Guatemala, and heard the sex-abuse rumblings. A.J. Benza, the former Daily News gossip columnist who Weinstein is said to have used to help kill negative stories, features prominently, as does New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister, who recounts a bizarre incident where Weinstein repeatedly called her a “cunt” at a glitzy Manhattan soiree before putting her then-boyfriend Andrew Goldman, also a journalist, into a headlock and punching the top of his head in front of a gaggle of partygoers and paparazzi.
“I never saw one photo,” Traister says in the film, even though “hundreds” were snapped of Weinstein manhandling the reporter.
And The New York Times, the very paper that broke the story of Weinstein’s alleged serial abuse, published what amounts to a Miramax press release on the ugly episode, pinning the blame mostly on Traister and Goldman for being pushy interlopers.
“I’m glad I’m the sheriff of this shit-ass fucking town,” Goldman recounts Weinstein saying before he got physical.