Quentin Tarantino said he has known for decades about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior toward women and now says he wishes he had done more and “taken responsibility” for what he heard.
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he told the New York Times. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”
“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” he added. “If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”
“The Hateful Eight” director said in the interview on Wednesday that he had heard about Weinstein’s behavior long before The New York Times and The New Yorker published exposés detailing sexual misconduct allegations against the movie mogul that spanned back decades.
Tarantino’s own former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, who has already spoken out about Weinstein’s physical advances while promoting “Mighty Aphrodite,” told Tarantino about the producer’s behavior,and he said another actress told him similar stories years later.
The Times also noted that the director knew Rose McGowan had reached a settlement with the producer.
However, he continued to make all of films with Weinstein, including “Hateful Eight,” the “Kill Bill” films, “Pulp Fiction” and “Inglourious Basterds” — something he now regrets.
“What I did was marginalize the incidents,” he said. “Anything I say now will sound like a crappy excuse.”
Tarantino said, “Hollywood has been operating under an almost Jim Crow-like system that us males have almost tolerated. We allowed it to exist because that’s the way it was. I’m calling on the other guys who knew more to not be scared. Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters. What was previously accepted is now untenable to anyone of a certain consciousness.”
Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company and is under criminal investigation in New York, L.A. and London after several women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, including harassment and rape.
A representative for Weinstein has stated, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”