Journalists who investigated Harvey Weinstein had crucial source: Gwyneth Paltrow

Journos who investigated Harvey Weinstein had an anonymous but vital source: Gwyneth Paltrow.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Harvey Weinstein at the 50th Anniversary Gala of the National Film Theatre in 2002. Picture: Getty Images

A new book detailing the investigation of Harvey Weinstein by two reporters in New York has already been compared to All The President’s Men: a tale of thorough, gutsy journalism that does for Hollywood patriarchs what Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did for the Nixon administration.

And just as Woodward and Bernstein had a confidential informant who provided vital information in an underground car park, the journalists who investigated Mr Weinstein also had a crucial but anonymous source. Her name was Gwyneth Paltrow.

“She did play a much more active role than anybody’s ever known,” Jodi Kantor, one of the authors, told CBS. “But it was hair-raising for her because Harvey Weinstein had been such an important influence.”

Kantor and Megan Twohey, two reporters at The New York Times, began speaking to Paltrow as they investigated allegations that Mr Weinstein had harassed and assaulted actresses and assistants and agreed payments to silence some of them in confidential legal settlements.

Paltrow, 46, was hired by Mr Weinstein to star in a screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma when she was 22. He allegedly summoned her to a hotel in Beverly Hills, placed his hands on her and suggested they give each other massages in his bedroom. She has said she refused and told her boyfriend, Brad Pitt, who accosted Mr Weinstein during a premiere and told him never to touch her again. Mr Weinstein berated her for this, she said, but she had stood her ground, kept her role in Emma and was later cast in his film Shakespeare in Love, for which she won an Oscar.

Left to right, David Parfitt, Donna Gigliotti, Harvey Weinstein, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Zwick, and Marc Norman at the 71st Academy Awards in 1999 where Paltrow won the best actress award.

Paltrow told the reporters that she was later mortified to learn that Mr Weinstein had referred to her success when seeking to persuade other young actresses to submit to his demands. While she did not initially agree to speak out on the record, she helped the reporters to gain interviews with other alleged victims, Twohey told NBC, before the publication of She Said, a book detailing their investigation.

“Gwyneth Paltrow was one of Harvey’s biggest stars. When so many other actresses were reluctant to get on the phone and scared to tell the truth about what they’d experienced at his hands, Gwyneth was one of the first people to get on the phone and she was determined to help,” Twohey said.

Mr Weinstein “was extremely scared about what the implications would be if his biggest star went on the record”, Twohey said. When Paltrow held a party at her house, Mr Weinstein had arrived, apparently hoping to speak to her, she said. Paltrow hid in the bathroom and telephoned the reporters, asking them for advice on what to do.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt.

Twohey and Kantor also report that Mr Weinstein’s brother, Bob, was apparently aware of his alleged abuses years earlier, and wrote to him accusing him of bringing “shame to the family and your company”.

In their book Twohey and Kantor report that as he sought to fend off their investigation, Lisa Bloom, a lawyer who cast herself as an advocate for victims’ rights, agreed to represent him and suggested to him methods for discrediting his accusers. Ms Bloom, who later resigned as his representative, told the reporters she had made a “colossal mistake”. In a tweet on Sunday, Rose McGowan, one of Mr Weinstein’s most prominent accusers, called for Ms Bloom to be disbarred.

Mr Weinstein, 67, has denied allegations of sexual assault and has pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and sexual assault in New York, in relation to two accusers, before a trial that is scheduled for January.

THE TIMES