In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bob Weinstein, who claims to have become essentially estranged from his brother over the last five years, discusses Harvey Weinstein’s ongoing sexual-abuse scandal, for which Bob believes his brother and longtime business partner should be removed from the Academy, and the future of the Weinstein Company. According to Bob, he was aware his older brother was serially unfaithful to wife Georgina Chapman, but had assumed his many affairs were consensual. However, Bob acknowledges he did know about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged history of non-sexual verbal and physical harassment. “It’s hard to describe how I feel that he took out the emptiness inside of him in so many sick and depraved ways. It’s a sickness but not a sickness that is excusable,” Bob Weinstein told THR. “It’s a sickness that’s inexcusable. And I, as a brother, understood and was aware as a family member, that my brother needed help and that something was wrong.”
Despite rumors to the contrary, Bob Weinstein denies masterminding the New York Times exposé that led to his brother’s ouster from the Weinstein Company. “People that are liars — lying to his wife, to his children, to everyone — well, they have to turn around and say, ‘Who stabbed me?’ It’s unbelievable that even to this moment he is more concerned with who sold him out,” said Weinstein. “I don’t hear concern or contrition for the victims. And I want them to hear that. Harvey has no remorse whatsoever.” As for why Bob didn’t take any action with regard to the abuse and intimidation he did reportedly see his brother inflict on employees and peers, including Bob himself, Weinstein admits, “I regret that beyond all measure. I live with that. That was a defining moment for me of cowardice on my own part.” He also refused to answer a question about Harvey’s contract renewal in 2015, during which the board was allegedly informed of “three or four confidential settlements” his brother had made with various women.
According to Bob Weinstein, he did at some point try to address his brother’s aggressive non-sexual behavior with no luck: “I saw it and I asked him to get help for many years. And that’s the truth. He avoided getting the help. We begged him.” As for rumors about the future of the Weinstein Company, Bob Weinstein isn’t ready to dissolve the company just yet, despite Amazon’s decision to extricate itself from current TWC co-productions, an In the Heights co-writer asking the studio to drop the Lin-Manuel Miranda movie musical, and an alleged company meltdown. Says Weinstein, “Well, they didn’t shut Fox News down, they didn’t shut NBC down. My brother is the one that should pay with everything.”
