Two years before the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal broke in 2017, his brother, Bob Weinstein, confronted him about his many years of “misbehavior,” according to a 2015 letter published in New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s new book “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.”
“You have brought shame to the family and your company through your misbehavior,” Bob Weinstein wrote in the letter, which appeared in a Times story Sunday ahead of the book’s publication. “Your reaction was once more to blame the victims, or to minimize the misbehavior in various ways. If you think nothing is wrong with your misbehavior so in this area then announce it to your wife and family.”
Bob Weinstein, who provided the letter and sat for interviews for the book, told the reporters he initially thought of Harvey suffered from sex addiction and sympathized because of what the Times called Bob’s “own previously unreported recovery from substance abuse.” He also said that he eventually abandoned his efforts to address the situation. “I got worn out,” he said in the book. “I said, ‘I surrender,’ see?”
According to Bob Weinstein’s attorney, “Bob long believed that Harvey was a sex addict engaged in persistent philandering, and, therefore, Bob repeatedly implored his brother to seek treatment from a doctor who specialized in sex addiction, including in the 2015 letter, as well as after he wrote that letter, which also addressed Harvey’s behavior toward Bob and his verbal abuse of others. Although Harvey promised Bob he would heed his advice and get the help Bob believed he needed, he apparently never did.”
Kantor and Twohey won a Pulitzer Prize for their initial reporting on Weinstein, who was forced out of the movie studio he had run for decades and now faces criminal charges of sexual assault and rape. (He has pleaded not guilty and repeated denied he ever had nonconsensual sex.)
In their new book, due in stores Tuesday, Kantor and Twohey offer more detailed accusations against Weinstein as well as new descriptions of how they reported the story, the Times wrote.
The book identifies a top whistleblower of Weinstein’s behavior as Irwin Reiter, an accountant who worked for The Weinstein Company for decades and leaked a memo from a studio employee detailing Weinstein’s mistreatment of junior female staffers and actresses.
According to the Times, a former assistant at the brothers’ pre-TWC company Miramax also came forward for the book. Rowena Chiu, who received a settlement in 1998 after she accused Weinstein of assaulting her in a hotel room. (Weinstein has disputed her account.)