Harvey Weinstein said Jennifer Aniston ‘should be killed’ after he learned that the National Enquirer was planning to run a story accusing him of sexually assaulting her, court documents have revealed.
A trove of emails and other communications between Weinstein and his team offer a disturbing look at his reaction to the avalanche of sexual misconduct allegations that sparked his downfall in the fall of 2017.
The correspondence is detailed in court documents unsealed ahead of Weinstein’s sentencing on Wednesday, where he faces up to 29 years in prison after being convicted of rape and sexual assault late last month.
In one email thread, a spokeswoman for the movie mogul forwarded a note from the Enquirer about the report they were planning on running about Aniston.
Weinstein responded to the note by writing: ‘Jen Aniston should be killed.’
Other emails feature the desperate pleas Weinstein sent to some two dozen influential people, including billionaires Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg, asking for them to help ‘resurrect’ his crumbling career and reputation.
The documents also include scathing messages from Weinstein’s brother and former business partner Bob Weinstein, who branded him an ‘inhuman pathological liar’ and said he deserved to go to hell.
Harvey Weinstein said Jennifer Aniston ‘should be killed’ after he learned that the National Enquirer was planning to run a story accusing him of sexually assaulting her, court documents have revealed
A trove of emails exchanged between Weinstein and his team is detailed in court documents, showing his response to the flood of sexual abuse allegations that sparked his downfall in October 2017. The documents were unsealed ahead of Weinstein’s sentencing on Wednesday, where he faces up to 29 years in prison. He is pictured arriving in court on February 24, hours before a jury convicted him of rape and sexual assault
The Aniston emails are dated October 31, 2017, less than a month after the New York Times and New Yorker published exposes about Weinstein’s alleged abuse, opening the floodgates for dozens of other alleged victims.
‘Not sure if you saw this one. Jennifer Aniston,’ Sallie Hofmeister, a senior executive at Sitrick public relations firm, wrote with the forwarded Enquirer email.
The email said: ‘Jennifer confided to a friend that during the production of the 2005 movie “Derailed” Weinstein sexually assaulted her by pressing up against her back in [sic] grabbing her buttocks.’
‘Through the years he would frequently stare at her cleavage/breast and move his mouth around making Jennifer uncomfortable.
‘We also quote a source close to Jennifer who tells the Enquirer: “Harvey was infatuated with Jennifer Aniston — He had a massive crush on her and constantly talked about how hot she was.”‘
Weinstein responded to Hofmeister’s email from his iPhone about 45 minutes after receiving it, expressing his death wish.
The Enquirer never ended up running the allegations about Aniston, which turned out to be untrue.
‘He never got close enough to her to touch her,’ her publicist Stephen Huvane told the New York Times this week.
‘She has never been alone with him. We have no idea about the email, since it wasn’t sent to us, nor do we have any comment to make on it.’
But Aniston did later accuse Weinstein of ‘piggish behavior’ during a premiere event for Derailed.
‘I remember I was sitting at the dinner table with Clive [Owen], and our producers and a friend of mine was sitting with me,’ the 51-year-old actress told Variety last year.
‘And he literally came to the table and said to my friend: “Get up!” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And so my friend got up and moved and Harvey sat down.
‘It was just such a level of gross entitlement and piggish behavior.’
Aniston also claimed that Weinstein had tried to bully her into wearing a dress designed by his then-wife Georgina Chapman to the movie’s premiere, but she refused.
The Enquirer never ended up running the allegations about Aniston, which turned out to be untrue. Aniston is seen speaking to Harvey at the premiere for Derailed in 2002
Aniston claimed that Weinstein had tried to bully her into wearing a dress designed by his then-wife Georgina Chapman (right) to the movie’s premiere, but she refused
The unsealed court documents revealed that board members of the now-shuttered Weinstein Company were looking to fire its founder within days of the initial news reports about his misconduct.
In a last-ditch effort to save his job, Weinstein emailed a group of his wealthy friends asking for their help. Recipients included Amazon boss Bezos, former New York City mayor Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Netflix’s chief content officer Theodore A Sarandos Jr, and NBC vice chairman Ronald Meyer.
‘My board is thinking of firing me,’ Weinstein wrote. ‘All I’m asking for is, let me take a leave of absence and get into heavy therapy and counseling whether it be in a facility or somewhere else, and allow me to resurrect myself with a second chance.’
Other emails in the court documents feature the desperate pleas Weinstein sent to some two dozen influential people, including billionaires Michael Bloomberg (left) and Jeff Bezos (right), asking for them to help ‘resurrect’ his crumbling career and reputation
The documents also include scathing messages from Weinstein’s brother and former business partner Bob Weinstein (pictured together in 2009)
Also included in the newly-unsealed court documents were scathing emails Weinstein’s younger brother Bob sent him in November 2017.
‘F*** u Harvey Weinstein. I pray there is a real hell. That’s where u belong,’ Bob, who is two years younger than Harvey at 65, wrote on November 2, 2017.
‘I suppose being you, is its own hell, if u could feel it, but no chance.’
He went on to compare his older brother to OJ Simpson, writing: ‘OJ didn’t kill Nicole Simpson and u had consensual sex with all those poor victimized women.’
Bob noted that there were ‘up to 82’ women accusing Harvey of sexual abuse and said he was ‘world class in that area’.
‘U deserve a lifetime achievement award for the sheer savagery and immorality and inhumanness, for the acts u have perpetrated,’ he wrote.
In another email dated a day earlier, Bob called Harvey a ‘pathological’ liar and said: ‘Sure all those 82 women had nothing better to do than have consensual sex with , u, and then out themselves and accuse u for sexual abuse.’
‘What did u ever do wrong, except bully and abuse people in your whole life and now say crap like everyone makes mistakes,’ he wrote sarcastically.
‘U have hurt, so many innocent women, your family, mine, me, your former employee, disgraced the name Weinstein.
‘The saddest part of all this, is that u will rationalize, minimize and compartmentalize, it all away.’
Weinstein was convicted of third degree rape and criminal sexual assault on February 24 for raping actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006.
He was acquitted of rape in the first degree and of two counts of predatory sexual assault which related to the two incidents.
He faces a minimum of four years in prison, but may be put behind bars for up to 29.
Weinstein has always denied sexual misconduct and has vowed to appeal his conviction.
More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, but only two have had their claims prosecuted.
Weinstein is also still awaiting a case in Los Angeles.