The chorus of disgust over Harvey Weinstein’s lascivious and predatory behaviour is deafening.
Hollywood’s greatest stars, and many of its minor ones, are falling over themselves to denounce the monster who has now been accused of rape by four women.
Among the latest to tear into him is Kate Beckinsale who said he tried the old ‘meet me in my hotel room in my dressing gown’ trick with her when she was just 17. She declined his offers of alcohol, she added, saying she had school in the morning. Standing up to Weinstein ‘harmed my career’, she claimed.
The chorus of disgust over Harvey Weinstein’s lascivious and predatory behaviour is deafening
Isn’t it surprising, then, that Kate went on to make three major movies with Weinstein after the bathrobe incident which took place around 1990 — Serendipity in 2001, The Aviator in 2004 and Everybody’s Fine in 2009.
Another of Weinstein’s alleged victims was Gwyneth Paltrow. She was so mortified after he tried to bed her aged 22 that she agreed to make Emma soon afterwards in 1996, The Pallbearer in the same year, then Sliding Doors in 1998.
In all she made at least nine Weinstein movies, and after her successes with his company, the New York Times crowned her the ‘First Lady of Miramax’ (his company).
Supermodel-turned-actress Cara Delevingne claims he demanded a threesome in his hotel suite — yet she took a star part in his movie Tulip Fever.
I could fill a telephone directory with the names of Hollywood actresses and wannabes who now claim they were sexually harassed or worse by Weinstein, yet kept quiet about it as they continued to take his shilling and profit from his power.
Bond girl Lea Seydoux told this week for the first time how Weinstein tried to jump on her and kiss her — back in 2012, she thinks. Why did it take her so long to speak out?
Even B-listers are at it. Myleene Klass says Weinstein propositioned her, offering her a ‘sex contract’ in 2010. So why is she only naming him now, seven years on?
The great unanswered question in this sordid affair is how could this beast have preyed for so long on so many strong, multi-million-dollar Hollywood actresses without one of them breaking ranks?
You’ve got to hand it to Amanda Holden. At 46 and a mother of two, she has a body to die for — one she’s fond of showing off, as she did this week in a dress split up her thigh and beyond her navel, with what looked like a bandage over part of her left breast
Why only now do we have a stampede of stars declaiming the monster that Weinstein surely is?
The ghastly truth may be that it suited them to stay silent. They valued their box office earnings and star status more than their integrity or their duty to other young women.
I would argue that with their silence they colluded in his activities — enabling him to continue to paw and grope and harass and abuse women for decades when they could have shamed him. This sorry saga has not been a good advert for the sisterhood, however much they might scream about Weinstein now.
- The latest bright idea to solve the elderly care crisis is for carers to make video calls instead of home visits. How utterly heartless. For most elderly people their biggest problem is not illness but loneliness. A virtual carer will never replace a smile and a chat over a cuppa. And how will they handle the video-call technology?
This week a medical student was convicted of sexual assault after roughly squeezing the breasts of a woman with whom he was having consensual sex. Even though she was in pain after he grabbed them ‘very forcibly’, she carried on with intercourse.
They met on the dating app Tinder and had sex on their second date.
Afterwards, she demanded an explanation. Instead, she claims, he stormed out and refused to answer her text messages imploring him to return.
Well, what do you expect if you enter the precarious world of dating apps? This story’s a warning to any woman using them — and a particularly vile example of a phenomenon where women are cast aside after just their second encounter. It’s called The Two Date Dump.
Westminster Wars
- Corbyn’s commies have leapt on an IMF report that says the only way to tackle wage inequality is to tax the rich. Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell think those earning more than £80,000 are so well-off they need to pay masses more tax. Let’s start with the un ion bosses who finance Labour.
- Flogging his new book How To Stop Brexit, Nick Clegg revealed that the UK’s GDP is higher than that of 11 EU countries combined. No wonder they don’t want us to leave!
- David Cameron has his first major job since leaving office, with the American company First Data Corporation. They describe him as one of the ‘most prominent global influencers of the early 21st century’. Is the firm based in Disney’s Fantasyland?
Corbyn’s commies have leapt on an IMF report that says the only way to tackle wage inequality is to tax the rich
- The Greek Orthodox Church has banned all foreign weddings at the monastery of St Paul on the island of Rhodes after a British couple celebrated their big day by posting a picture of the bride in her wedding dress simulating a sex act on her new husband. Well, we hope it was simulated. Friends described the snap as ‘brilliant’. No, the word is disgusting — and it’s a picture that shames Britain.
I was his lost cause
In the many obituaries after the sudden death of voice coach Anthony Gordon Lennox, 48, who trained the Duchess of Cambridge and David Cameron in public speaking, one said he was ‘not just a loyal friend but also a conciliator, a skilled operator untainted by malice’.
How very true. I will always remember Anthony from my time working for William Hague, when he was a true confidant but very candid.
I asked him for help with my public speaking and on how to make my Australian accent more palatable. He replied that even he couldn’t work miracles.
The older the Queen and Prince Philip get, the more they seem to be like the rest of us.
Her Majesty will not lay a wreath at the Cenotaph this year, a ceremony she has led for 65 years, and instead will watch from the balcony with her husband. At 96, this old soldier is too weary to take part and she wants to be beside him.
My Dad is now in his 90s, too, and all he wants to do is spend time with Mum, even if that means sitting beside her in a care home all day while they watch the world go by.
Cheat’s another liar
After the success of Liar, starring Joanne Froggatt, which drew six million viewers, ITV has commissioned another psychological thriller called Cheat. It follows a dangerous sexual relationship between two fruitcakes which spirals out of control with fatal consequences. Just call it Liar II — so we don’t have to watch it all over again.
After the success of Liar, starring Joanne Froggatt (pictured), which drew six million viewers, ITV has commissioned another psychological thriller called Cheat
- He may have left £21 million of his £9 billion fortune to charity, yet The Duke of Westminster paid almost nothing in death duties due to an intricate web of tax-exempt trusts. Isn’t there something rather offensive about a billionaire duke who avoids inheritance tax, while we common folk pay 40 per cent on assets worth more than £325,000 — less than the value of a bathroom in one of the countless leasehold properties he owns in London.
- Surprised to see an Oxford college students’ union banned the Christian Union from its freshers’ fair, saying it would be be ‘alienating’ for students of other religions. Judging by the pictures of the near-naked Oxford graduates in group groping sessions this week, I thought they were re-enacting the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lording it over his victims
What a smack in the face for retired war hero Field Marshal Lord Bramall and the family of the late Lord Brittan that the man who oversaw the relentless persecution of them over false historic child sex allegations has now been made a Lord.
If former Scotland Yard boss Bernard Hogan-Howe had a shred of the decency of these two men, whose reputations were ripped apart as he hounded them, he would have refused the honour.