Bonus: Ken Auletta on his new book and portraying the 'talented monster,' Harvey Weinstein

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone. Yes, I'm back again, this time to bring you a really interesting conversation I just had with journalists Kenna Letta about his new book, Hollywood Ending RB Weinstein and the Culture of Silence. Kent's connection to weinstein story goes all the way back to two thousand two, when he wrote an in depth profile of him for The New Yorker magazine. Now. At the time, he confronted Weinstein about allegations of sexual assault, but wasn't ultimately able to convince any of the women involved to go on the record. It would take another fifteen years for the full story to come to light through Jodie Cant and Megan Twoey's reporting for The New York Times, as well as Ronan Pharaohs for The New Yorker. For his new book, Ken revisits the story. It's a fascinating portrayal of Weinstein's life and career. He also tries to answer so many of the lingering questions about what exactly motivated Weinstein to commit such horrific acts. Did you feel me ambivalent in some ways about Harvey because I know it was important for you to write about a person can as a multidimensional human being, and not just as this grotesque monster we've come to know in recent years. No, that that was a real challenge. I was not writing about a cardboard cutout figure. Biography should not feel like a prosecution brief. You want to capture a whole man. And this was a guy who was a monster, but he was also a very talented man who brought to the screen an incredible array of movies. And the relationship with the brother, his use and abuse of power, the role of his mother, and what happened in his childhood, all those were we're really pregnant for me to explore. And it's something you've been exploring for gosh ken twenty years, because you wrote that New Yorker profile back in two thousand two. You confronted him about allegations of sexual assault back then and he denied it. Tell me about that conversation. And that confrontation, well, the conversation it was. It was our last interview. It was a small conference room at one of his offices. And I said, Harvey, tell me about how you abuse Rowena Chew at the Venice Film Festival. And he stood up and I was seated at a small conference they at lea set up over me, clenched his fists, his lower lip was quivering, and he started screaming at me, You're going to ruin my marriage to Eve. You're going to destroy my three young teenage daughers privacy and shame them. And this was a consensual affair. And I broke it off, and she was threatening to expose my family and I had to stop. And at that point, Sauce, I'm seated. That was an easy target him to throw a punch at. I stood up and faced him, and at that point Harvey really surprised me because what he did was he started to cry. He literally, and I don't mean a tear rolling down his cheek, I mean bawling, crying out loud. This is terrible. You can't write this. It's just awful. And I had hoped to write it, but I couldn't get to grow in a chew or the other woman's Elda Perkins uh to talk to me. I tracked Zelda down to Guatemala where she was raising horses, and she she said, I signed, I can't talk. They both signed nondisclosure agreements and they challenged them and and but we David Remnick, the editor the New Yorker said, we don't have anyone on the record. We're not the National enquire we can't run this story, and I totally agree with it. Was also a very different time than two thousand two, wasn't it, ken Um. I mean, and I don't say that in a way that's particularly laudatory. I mean, it was a time when stories like this made the rounds, and I mean not just in Hollywood, but in various media outlets as you and I know well, and it it just wasn't taken as seriously, wasn't well. One of the reasons the subtitle of my book is the Culture of Silence, is that people knew or should have known, and kept their mouth shut, and this allowed Harvey to continue to abuse women. When when he was revealed to be a sexual in October of two thousand seventeen, over one woman came out of the closet and said, he did it to me too. That was amazing. So people, I think the same thing would not happen today, and that since you're absolutely right, Katie, I think many people today, because of the exposure of people like Harvey and many other men, would not put up with it. They were They would blow the whistle up. And but you know, something similar is happening with Donald Trump today. I mean, Donald Trump is claiming he won an election that they lost by seven million votes, and the Republican Party overwhelmingly is fearful of challenging Well, people were fearful of challenging Harvey Weinstein too. Of course, you give a lot of credit to Jodie Cant and Megan Tuey, who did an incredible job exposing Harvey in the New York Times, as did Ronan Pharaoh, who you helped in terms of introducing him to David Remnick at The New Yorker. How frustrating was that for you? What did you feel like this man, this is the one that got away because you you do not convey any kind of ill will at all or even frustration that they got the story you almost got. In two thousand two, I was off doing a book on another subject. I was not competing with them. I was thrilled when Ronan came to me, interviewed me, and I said, what had he gotten? He told me this is he was doing a f NBC at the time. He said, I've got three women on camera saying Harvey raped or sexually assaulted me. I've got five women on camera but shielded the name shielded, and I've got the audio tape of the Italian model who Harvey's grabbed her breasts in two thousand and fifteen. I said, my god, you broke in the case. I was. I was thrilled by it. And it wasn't competitive because I wasn't I wasn't chasing the same story they were at that point. So I was just filled that this guy was going to be stopped. You were at first a little skeptical about Ronan Pharaoh because of his position on Woody Allen and uh sexually assaulting his sister Dylan, and you thought he might be a zealot rather than an objective journalist. But he convinced you that that wasn't the case. How did he do that? Well, he just asked good questions, and he wasn't certain about some things. He just he sounded to me more like a skeptical reporter than a zella And I was thrilled. And when I called Remnick and said, I think Ronan was broken the case and we should you should look at him for The New Yorker, the word I used was I said, David, he's judicious, and he convinced me he was, and he still convinces me he was, and is. I worked for NBC, of course, as you know, Ken, for gosh twenty plus years, and I've always been intrigued, fascinated, and quite frankly a bit confused about NBC's role in in basically, you know, shutting down this story. You write, two conclusions seem unassailable. First, NBC killed a story even though Ronan Pharaoh had solid evidence that Harvey Weinstein assaulted women. Second, NBC confided to Rvy Weinstein before telling Ronan Pharaoh his story was dead. You know, you give a number of theories about why NBC sort of reacted the way it did. From Noah Oppenheim didn't want to piss Harvey off because he had, you know, was the screenwriter for Jackie and wanted to keep the doors open to his movie career too, that Harvey might have some goods on that lower and he was using that to threaten NBC if they went forward with the piece. Um, you know, now that you've done so much reporting on it, Ken, what do you think about the way NBC handled this story. I think it's a disgrace to it animal story. I don't know why they killed Ronan's story, but I know this they claim. And at one point someone came up to me. I was doing Morning Joe one morning. They said, would you have lunch with this maka mock at NBC? And I said, yes, but you have to keep his name off the record, which I have, and I recount what he said to me at our lunch, and he said, Ronan didn't have the story at NBC. I had two women from Date Lines screen where he had, and he didn't have it. He only got the story when he went to The New Yorker. So when the story was reported, they said, Ronan says this an NBC says that. I said, but wait, this is a third party to go to to find out who's telling the truth. So I went to the New Yorker and I talked to Ronan's editor, Deirdre, and I said, Deirdre, when when Ronan came to you in August of two thousand seventeen, what did he bring to you? And she said to me, he brought three women on camera saying they were abused. He brought five women who said they were shield They were shielded. But they said they were abused, and he brought the Italian model audio tap, so the evidence was there. And Harvey's people acknowledged that they were told by NBC at least a week before Ronan was told that the story was dead. So those two facts to me are on a sell and and and put NBC in a very bad order. Now why NBC made the decision. We talked about the theories that I present. I don't know the answer to that, but I but it's your smells. When we come back, Ken and I talk about power dynamics and how they often feed into sexual harassment and even assault. This book, as I mentioned, isn't just about Harvey's transgressions Weinstein's transgressions. You're giving a comprehensive account of his life and career. I found the childhood stories really fascinating because I'm very interested in generational trauma and how the way you're shaped as a child really impacts you later in life. But you you talk about how it was really challenging to see this whole person, and you say you didn't want to write about a hard board cutout. But some people have questioned whether someone like Harvey Weinstein deserves a deep dive and a three sixty assessment by someone of your stature. Well, I mean someone in a review in the Washington Post that was that was you know, complimentary to me the report. The person who reviewed, college professor Nedollis said, why do we Why are you making us a monster sympathetic? I'm not making a monster sympathetic. I'm portraying who are the monster? But I'm also portraying a guy who distributed or produced movies like Shakespeare and loved my left foot, sex lives and video tape, the crying game. You can go on and on and how do you do that? Was it just? Was it because he was a monster or does he have some talent? What was his talent? I think we just want to know that. Well, they should want to know that biography is about a whole person's life, not just about a slice of So he was a talented monster, oh, no question, he was a talent us and by the way, also a monster who was capable of charm and charisma and and and that's part of the story too. And by saying it, you're not making him a sympathetic character. You're just mak him a whole character, a human being. Let's talk about that childhood. His mother, Miriam was one tough cookie. His father Max was kind of a disappointment to his wife and to his family, sort of never made made as much money as Miriam wanted to. Meanwhile, she was just a screamer, would denigrate her boys. Um And I'm curious how you think she shaped Harvey because one of the things I found interesting about the book, Ken is you did talk to a lot of experts, psychologists and people who are knowledgeable about sociopaths and and and and why people behaved this way and the forces that shaped them. So what is your take on the role Miriam played on Harvey's behavior as an adult. I don't think there's any question that that the yelling that was so common in the house, so common by the way that Harvey's friends played poker at a different house every weekend, but they would never agree to play at the Weinstein house. Why because they said Miriam yelled too much, it was too oncome Harvey of fat, Harvey stopped eating that Harvey this Harvey that she was just a yeller. And if you look at Harvey in the office, even Bob in the office when they started merrimax. They were constantly yelling and creating enormous fear in the people who weren't for them and the people who came in contact with them. But that doesn't explain Harvey's sexual perversions. And I wouldn't dare to make a claim that Miriam is responsible for for his sexual diversions, but I think she's responsible for normalizing yelling and screaming in an office. Well, the sex really isn't about sex, though, Ken, It's about power. So don't you think maybe feeling so disempowered as a child, and feeling so small and worthless in some ways by a parent who basically berated him constantly, um that that somehow he went and again you know, I'm not a psychoanalyst, but somehow he went searching for validation and he got that through unbridled and unchallenged power. I am. I am very wary of jumping off that bridge because to me, it risks psychobabble, which I don't want to get into. I mean, the professional people I talked to, psychologists all were careful to say, this is what we know about sexual debncy, what we know about people who are rape women. But we but we want to be clear, Ken, we're not talking about Harvey Meisen, who has not not been a patient about our We know we want to keep a distance. And I feel the same way. I don't. I mean, it is plausible that that Miriam bears some responsibility for his behavior. Yes, do I believe that it wasn't power the word I would use his conquest rather than power. Harvey needed to conquer people. And it was verbally conquer them in negotiations, conquer them or women, conquer them in some ways. It was less about sex with women. That was just conquering them. And and and in the end I came to the conclusion, and talking to psychologists led me to this conclusion. Bar he was a sociopath. The three definitions of a sociopath. The three basic definitions are narcissism. Harvey qualifies lack of empathy. If you watch them in the trial, as I did every day when those women were testifying with tears in their eyes. Sometimes he fell asleep. He wasn't paying, he wasn't paying careful with him, It wasn't reaching him in his gut in any serious way. And and the third is lack of guilt. And Harvey has no guilt. Harby feels like he's a victim. To this day, he thinks he's a victim, not a villain. Tell us about his relationship with Bob, because of course they have the same mom, grew up in the same household. But Bob was a different ball of wax in many ways. And you write about Harvey is having a quote unhinged, shakespeare like relationship with Bob. Can you talk about that dynamic a little bit, kennon what you discovered. They shared a room in Flushing, Queens. Uh. They were very close. Um, Bob is two years younger than Harvey. Uh. They started Merriamax together as equal partners. Bob came up with the idea of the name of Merrimax after Miriam and Max Rum. And everyone knew that if you want the decision, you had to go only to Bob or Harbor. You couldn't you couldn't go around them. They were They talked five times a day at least. But at some point Bob became increasingly frustrated with Harvey. He thought he was a narcissist and spending too much time on his own self promotion and less time on the movie business, and also then getting diverted, starting talk magazine, talk books, investing in the fashion industry, investing in television, getting away from what his major talent was, which was movies, and then spending money because he was out of control. Harvey has impulse control issues, and so he would just spend and spend private planes, you know, picking up checks, lunch tabs for people, dinner as you and Bob, who was much more of a business and it was frustrated. But Bob also another change in Bob. Bob was Bob was a fearsome person. I saw he was initially, but Bob became an alcoholic at some point and went into therapy treat alcoholics anonymous, and he came to be a very reflective, self and exploring kind of a person. And he was constantly telling Harvey, Harvey, you're a sex act. Harvey stopped cheating on your wife. You know, he didn't, he says, he didn't know that Harvey was raping a woman. But nevertheless, he became much more self aware, and he constantly was frustrated that Harvey was not self aware. And so one day in two thousand fifteen, and I recount this in the book, at a meeting of the board with Harvey, and which I have the tape of Harvey said fire my brother. He wented to fire Bob, and Bob wasn't on the goal. Bob didn't know about the evil partners. And then some weeks later Bob Harvey sucker punched, breaking his nose. It was quite extraordinary, but Bob was in it kind of. It was like a bad marriage. One day he would wake up and said, well, I think the marriage worked out, And the next day wake up and said, I got a divorce my my spouse. In the end, and when Harvey was exposed in October two thousand seen, Bob provided the critical vote to fire Harvey and was extremely helpful. Obviously in writing this book for you, you spent a lot of time with Bob and expressed your gratitude to him for being so open and willing to to participate. I was. I was very grateful. He spent a notice amount of time and gave me such insight not just into Harvey, but into marry him and and the early days of the business, and and so Bob was a very valuable source. I only talked to a lot of people, but Bob was was a really valuable source for me, but Bob. When Harvey was fired, Bob in effect was fired. Bob couldn't even hire a lawyer for an agent because his name was Weinstein and he had a scarlet letter on him, as as did Harvey. Now he's coming back and he's doing some stuff in the movie business, but he had a really tough time and he stopped speaking to Harvey. They don't speak. And and in my had email exchanged with Harvey from prison, and and Bob would give me documents of things that Harvey had done. And I would confront Harvey with an email exchanges that he would dictate his answers to his PR guy. And he said, that's not true. And it was just blatantized to me. Was it was true? But the question I wanted to ask Harvey, and I did an email which he didn't answer to answered maybe questions I asked, But the one question I really wanted to ask Harvey, when you put your head on a pillow at night after raping, Let's say, Jessica, man, how did you explain to yourself where you were just done? And I suspect that I suspect Harbaby would not have been able to give me the answer I would hope for from a human being, because I think he would say it was consensual and she wanted something for me. I wanted something from her, and she she really came on to me, and and that's his defense. And he does, in fact, you know, talk about sort of this idea of these relationships being consensual UM and a lot of EMPHASI this has been placed on that UM. He said, sometimes I don't know when it's consensual, trying to learn maybe I don't recognize by powering these situations. And you quote an attorney to Harvey who publicly proclaimed his innocence but told you this, Harvey's a sociopath. He's not someone who thinks he did anything wrong and is burdened by heavy conscience, which can you just said he believes that if a woman wants something from him, even if he pens her down and rapes her, he thinks it is a consensual act. I think that's absolutely right. I Mean, one of the things that that UM I keep seeing with people who have power, not just in Hollywood, is the vain narcissist are very and in Hollywood. One of the things that's really different is that you're surrounded by young attractive women, unlike say the auto business. And it's very easy for some of these powerful men to confuse a compliment. Oh, Mr Weinstein, that was a wonderful movie. Almost the Weinstein that was just a great speech you made. To confuse a compliment with a come up, and to think these women really want to climb in bed with me? Well, wasn't it ever thus in the Hollywood studio system? Until it wasn't and perhaps still is. You quote Elia Kazan's autobiography of Life where he says all young actresses and that time and place were thought of his prey to be overwhelmed and toppled by the mail. And he adds that all these moguls like Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer quote went by a simple rule and a useful one. Do I want to fuck her? Basically was saying these studio heads were standing in for mail movie goers. You know, in many ways, Harvey was operating in a world where it was, as one of his victims said, the casting couch on acid. And you know, I mean it was this. Obviously, he took it way further than most people. As you said, more than a hundred women accusing him of sexual assault. But how much did the system enable him and embolden him to behave this way? Ken? He thought this was normal and and the system allowed him to think it was normal, No question about that. But the only point I would make the casting couch as as you're pointing out a long history in Hollywood and Eli Kazan's book, which is a wonderful read, by the way, but and that Harvey subscribed to that. You do I want to sleep with before I cast an actress. Is she attractive enough to want to sleep with her? No question? But there's a difference between casting couch and rape. Rape is a criminal effect. I was found guilty in a criminal chial and and that's different casting casting. I don't know, Ken, I mean that assumes that if some I don't know about that. Actually, I think that if you went back in time, Ken and looked at some of these women who were in positions of much less power than some of these big cheeses, and they were you know, against their will, you know, maybe they didn't charge rape. But but I don't I don't think a lot of those cases. I mean, I'm obviously theorizing here we're consensual No, there's no Louis B. Mayer abused Judy Garland and she was a young actors. There's no question about that. And was that right? It was certainly not consensual. It was not casting couch. It was more than that. So there are many examples in Hollywood of over the years of people crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed, but hard, but physically throwing a woman down on the bed and ripping off the clothes that was That's what Harvey did, and that's you know, that's a criminal offense. And it's different than sexual harassment or casting couch or I want something from you if you want to be in this movie. I guess. I guess it depends on what actually happened on that couch, right, And I'm not defending it. I mean, it's still a gruesome thing to do, but right, different is what is all I'm saying. Yeah, well, let's talk about some of the executives at Mirror Maps publicist agents, Bob, you know, talk about the environment that existed at that company that allowed Harvey to pretty much behave this way. And I was struck by many people saying we thought he was cheating on his wife that he was not faithful, that there was a lot of infidelity, But we didn't know he was forcing himself on on these people. We didn't know he was raping these people, sexually assaulting them, and you know, undoing his bathrobe and exposing himself. And I remember Jody and Megan had one thing where he like masturbated into a potted plant. I don't get this whole thing, Ken, but that's probably for another podcast. But I mean, how did he get away with doing what he was doing for so long? And was it sort of wilful ignorance on the part of the people around him. Well, certainly it was will fall ignorance on the part of some Let me tell you Forrids a couple of stories. I quote executors like Mark Iill and some others books saying they had they would never allow their attractive young secretaries or assistance to meet alone with Harvey. Weis why, clearly they knew he was perfectly capable of physical abuse, not just casting catch stuff, but literally assaulting women. I tell the story about Hilary Silver who comes for a job and you in the late nineties at Merrimax, and she she goes in and She's in the elevator with Harvey and he Caeesar's a very attractive woman, and he says, what do you do? Who are you? What are you doing something here for an interview with human resources? He said, come and see me. After she goes for interview, she walks down to his office with the head of human resources, Harvey without asking the human resources head how how she do points to Hillary and says, you're hired. She then goes on a vacation trip she had long plan. She comes back three or four weeks later and she gets a call invited to have drinks with with the head of human resource with human resources executive, someone of one of the four assistants to Harvey and two other executives, and she's thrilled. She said, what a welcoming place inviting me to have a drink with him the day before. I'm just don't work and surprised. She goes to have drinks and they say, Hillary, don't come to work here. Why because he's going to rape you. He will assault you. So and he didn't come to work there. But if Hill, if they knew that Harvey was capable, clearly it was much more widespread than knowledge that Harvey was physically abusing women. And and now do I want to make a blanket condemnation that everyone to work that new of course not, but clearly some people did and kept them out shut. Did he make everyone who worked their sign an nd A basically male or female sign NBA never to speak ill of the company or as executives? And and that that's a blanket statement that you could literally keep everyone silent because and we should probably point out ken you know, Harvey was enormously powerful in Hollywood. If somebody wanted a career in the entertainment business, going against Harvey Weinstein back in the day would be tantamount to, you know, basically committing career suicide. And Harvey and has stood something that Donald Trump understands. They believe that fear is essential to having power. People have to fear you, and people feared hard and they kept as one of the reasons they kept quiet and didn't do it. But the other thing Vantagy had he was making really good movies. And if you're an ambitious actor director, you want to be in really good movie. You don't want to be in the sequels The Batman. You might want to do that to make a little money, but but to get an Academy Award, you want to be in a serious movie. And Mery Mix was making serious movies and that was a great magnet protracting talent to work for When we come back, has Hollywood actually learned? It's Weinstein lesson more with Kenna Letta right after this, what do you make of the fact that there was a lot of emphasis on the idea that some of these women continued to have a relationship with Harvey after they were abused. Of course, when I was writing my own book and kind of trying to um basically metabolize all the stuff that had come out about Matt lower Um, that was one of those things that I struggled with a bit until I talked to a lot of people about the nature of these relationships and the psychological component of trying to um justify in a victim's mind sort of what had transpired. And I'm curious if if writing this book you gained a deeper understanding of those dynamics can that are at play and situations like this. I did. Indeed, in fact, one of the biggest obstacle that the prosecution had to win the case against Harvey in a criminal job, was how do they explain why women who were going to testify against Harvey who claimed he raped them, nevertheless, in some cases kept in touch with them, in some cases actually had consensual sex with them afterwards. And and it fed into Harvey's defensive argument, which is these were consensual and these women wanted something for me, and they were ambitious, young young women. And one of the ways that the prosecution overcame that that problem. They called to the stand Dr Barbera's of Temple University and that I talked to her actually from my book really smart. And she also testified in the Cosby trial as she did in this trial. And one of the facts she presented of American women who are raped continue to have a relationship with the person who raped them. And then the question is why. It goes to the heart of what you're saying. Women in denial, they blame themselves, they're fearful of doing something, they don't want people to know, all sorts of reasons. And this is the defense was able to play that out by drawing it out of the out of these women in the trial. I mean the prosecution. The problem, sorry, the prosecution was able to draw out of these victims at the trial why they kept silent, why they kept in touch with Harvey, And it was very powerful and it overcame basically Harvey's defense. I mean, I read your book and quite admired it, and and and how you dealt with the Matt Lower thing, which was obviously a very painful thing for you to go through. And and these psychologists, as they did with me, helped me sort out because you know, that is such an old chestnut, Ken, isn't it that, oh, these women wanted something from him, and somehow the blame gets shifted on the women in a very sort of misogynistic, patriarchal not to use those buzzwords way. And so you know, I think it's been so infused in US as a culture that those kinds of things are really important to understand the dynamics of a sexual assault victim that might explain her behavior. You you single out just Command as having the most impactful testimony during the trial. Why was her testimony, in your view, Ken, such a game changer? Well, I was, as you was saying this, I'm so glad you latched onto Jessica man here because I thought it was she was the most significant witness for the prosecution. She was that the defense was hammering her for three days. She was understand and she was crying, and she she made a number of mistakes and and of keeping in touch with Harvey, of seeking his help, and she was obviously complicated as even being. And at some point after after Harvey's defense attorney dono Return just went at her too much. She stopped crying. She looked at the jury and she said, I know many of you would question some of the decisions I made, and I questioned some of the decisions I made. I made some wrong decisions. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, one fact is true. Harvey Weinstein raped me. And that moment I get chills just when I recounted now, But everyone in like Corean, got chills. And the jury who had notebooks to take notes, all of them were taking notes when she said that. I just think it was a moment that was particularly potent. Having said that, the male foreman of the jury, Kent, told you that it was the testimony of the male witnesses, not the female victims, that were most pivotal to their verdict. Can you explain that I can't. I really can't, because you know, one of the slogans that meet some people in me too push forward, believe women, I mean, which I think is a journalist is crap. I mean, if you tell me believe what the president or mayor governor says, I would say, hey, wait to say no. That the right slogan is listened to women. And and I was surprised that he was saying he basically wasn't listening to what he was saying, is that Harvey's One of the Harvey's defense a former producer said that acknowledged that Harvey was a sex addict, which was a powerful moment front page in the New York Post headlines that day after he said that certainly, and then the foreman of the jury said, I was bothered that Harvey Weinstein sometimes didn't seem to be paying attention or falling asleep. And one of the things that was really interesting to me about Harvey throughout the trial, he was passive. It wasn't Harvey take charge, Harvey siss hands, which was a slogan used to describe him. It was a passive party, slumping in his chair, falling a sleep. Sometimes it was quite extraordinary. And then the former of the jury said one other thing. He said, I wanted to hear from Harvey. We said, I wanted to testify. Now, his defense lawyers knew not to put him on the stand because the DA would have just gone at him with so many other things that didn't even come up in the trial of his behavior, which the judge allowed them to do. So. But anyway, you're right, he focused on men not women. Yeah, and what what who were the key man who he thought really had an impact on the verdict? Well, this this lawyer, not lawyer, this producer who Harvey brought on, who claimed that Annabelle Secure, the actress who claimed that Harvey raped her, um that she that in fact she told confided to him at the time, I did something really bad. I had sex with Harvey, weins, claiming that it wasn't rape, who was consensual and and and but then the prosecution prosecutor got him to acknowledge that, well, I know, my friend Harvey's a sex at and you know that. It was like a bomb in the court when he, I mean, the defense one of the seven people who are going to speak for Harvey and defense comes out and says he's a sex at it basically acknowledging in effect, he's guilty of things. It was really an amazing moment. But that was that was that was a key witness. You talk about me too, And I know you talk about a study of Hollywood that was commissioned and Anita Hill was in charge of it, and certainly this is something that I followed closely. Has Hollywood really changed? Um, what is your sense of that? I mean, in the short term, it's changed. I mean people. I mean you could talk to studio executives or producers that I'll tell you they don't want to meet alone with the woman to find a plane woman where they meet, they keep their door open, but they're very sensitive. They not how they're perceived. And clearly any number you know, the number of men have been shamed and basically you know, assaulted as as perverts is astonishing people. Right now Paul Haggis is dealing with that. The director Paul Haggis at one of many many people married brutality of the chef. I meant, right right, you just gotta less moons. I mean you go down the list of uh, in fact, you do. I know I read the page and I was like, Wow, that is a lot of people. It is a lot of people. But the question becomes an answer to your question, Katie, is this a long term effect? Will it have a long term effect? I hope it does, But will it I don't um. I also thought it was interesting that you posited something that got Matt Damon in a lot of trouble in the early days of Me Too, that there are gradations of offenses and not everyone is Harvey Weinstein. You know, they're probably the top offenders. And then there are people whose lives have been destroyed, like that poor professor at Dartmouth who you write about, who um, you know, took his own life. He was awfully accused and and they committed suicide. Yeah, but you know, even people who are not false accuses, who are who are guilty of misbehavior. Um, if Harvey's a felony, some of that misbehavior is a misdemeanor. It's not excusable. But if those people are willing to acknowledge they did a terrible thing and they're sorry for it, and every form we believe in the part of system pardons in prisons. I don't believe in the death belt. I mean yet we put many people to death and we don't allow them to to have a chance to say, hey, I really made a mistake here and I've changed and let me show you how I've changed and so and I think we grouped, as you suggested, too many people together with Harvey. Harvey is extreme less mumbez, what he did is is close to that. But some of the other people, I mean Mike Areskies, the former AP who forcibly kissed a woman, alf Al Franken, who is forced to resign. I mean, it's not comparable what they did. Do you think there is redemption for people like Matt Lower and Charlie Rose? It's very hard when you're that age to come back. I think there's better chance for redemption someone in their forties or early fifties. But it's just I mean, Charlie Rose is eight, Matt is in his sixties. Um, it's just tough. And also then the question becomes are they apologetic? Are they contrite? Are they are they acknowledging that they did something wrong? And if they don't, there's no redemption. What did you learn from this whole interrogation into the the life at the heart and the soul if if he has either of Harvey Weinstein. I mean, when you were done with this book, Uh, how did you feel about Harvey? I felt the way Bob Weinstein felt when he described to me, which I used at the end of the book. He said, there's no Harvey. He has no ability to be reflective, to be introspective, to to look at what he's done and and and the shame he's brought. I mean, his three daughters don't speak to him, his ex wife doesn't speak, he doesn't speak to Bob Weinstein, his brother doesn't speak to former friends and no longer his friends. And yet Harvey sits there convinced that he's a he's a victim, and that and that people everything is unfair. If you sat in that courtroom and watched his he asked to speak before the judge sentenced them, and he stood up and made one of the most remarkable talks. First of all, he turned to the women who the six women were testified against the received in the first row, and he said, have great feelings for these people. We had great times together, and they're they're thinking themselves great times together. Who what are you talking about? And then are we suddenly switched into we live in an Econdo McCarthy period where men are being subjected and you know, thrown out and and treated as if they're they're monsters, and it's so unfair. It's like the McCarthy period. And I'm a victim of that is what he said. My words, not his, but that's that's what he was saying. And to sit there and listen to that, it just it was stupefying that this guy is so divorced from reality. And that's what Bob was saying at the app A big thank you to Kenna Letta. His book is called Hollywood Ending Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, and it's out now. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements and Adrianna Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. 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