Less than a week after the New York Times published multiple accounts of sexual misconduct involving Harvey Weinstein, he has been fired from the Weinstein Company.
The all-male board of directors voted to remove Weinstein and leave the company in the hands of his brother Bob. Weinstein was suspended on Friday, and his lawyer Lisa Bloom resigned on Saturday. In a statement released Sunday, the board wrote:
In light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days, the directors of The Weinstein Company—Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar—have determined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with The Weinstein Company is terminated, effective immediately.
The board did not elaborate on this “new information,” but in an interview with the NYT, Maerov said Weinstein allegedly violated the company’s code of conduct in the last week.
On Sunday night Rose McGowan, one of the actresses named in the NYT piece, told the Hollywood Reporter that the dismantling shouldn’t stop at Weinstein: She says the entire board should “resign effective immediately.”
“Men in Hollywood need to change ASAP. Hollywood’s power is dying because society has changed and grown, and yet Hollywood male behavior has not. It is so not a good look. In the way cooler than Hollywood world I live and work in, I am actually embarrassed to be associated with it.”
Elsewhere, actors and members of the industry have distanced themselves from Weinstein or spoken out against him. In a statement on Monday, frequent collaborator Meryl Streep stated that she didn’t know about the “financial settlements with actress and colleagues” or his inappropriate meetings with women in hotel rooms: “The behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar. Each brave voice that is raised, heard, and credited by our watchdog media will ultimately change the game.”
H/T Variety