Weinstein: The Inside Story Panorama

This programme contains

some scenes which some

viewers may find upsetting.

CAMERAS CLICK.

REPORTERS:

Harvey!

Harvey!

Harvey!

This Sunday the 90th

Academy Awards will take place.

For the first time in many

years, one power figure

will not be welcome.

More than 100 women have now come

forward with stories

of sexual harassment,

assault and rape going back decades.

I just remember feeling so small.

And so inconsequential,

and so powerless.

Had me groped.

Very tired.

I was trying to resist and say no.

You know in that moment that

you may not make it.

It's not about sex.

It's not about sex,

it's always about power.

It's part and parcel of doing

business in Hollywood.

This is a filthy stables and Harvey

is merely the guy who has taken

the biggest dump in it.

This is the inside story of how one

of Hollywood's most powerful men

suppressed allegations of sexual

abuse for decades.

Harvey Weinstein had an incredibly

complex machine designed to maintain

silence around this.

We got very angry and said,

I've investigated you,

and you're not so clean,

so be careful.

It saddens me that everyone woke up

because of Harvey Weinstein.

On the other hand, thank

God we've woken up.

I was just out of acting

school, going on auditions

and pounding the pavement.

The first time I met

him was in his office.

It was at a meeting

set up by my agents.

The first moments of that meeting

were very easy, breezy, casual.

And I felt very much like he was

going to take care of me.

It was 1994.

Actress Katherine Kendall thought

she was about to get her big break.

She'd been invited by Harvey

Weinstein to a movie screening.

He sent his driver to collect her.

Once I got there, I realised it

wasn't a special screening

with cast and crew.

It was just a movie.

I knew I'd been had.

I mean, I knew I'd been tricked.

I wanted to leave.

He said, I'll take you home.

We ended up stopping at his house.

And then I ended up going up,

probably against my better judgment.

Once I was in there,

we had an hour-long conversation

about movies and film and books.

It was almost like

he had my playlist.

And he knew exactly

what book to talk about.

And he knew that book,

the way I knew that book.

And he knew who to quote

and what passage to quote.

And he knew the author,

and he had the rights

to that book, actually.

He was going to make

a movie of that book.

I kind of got up to

leave, or get my stuff.

And he went into the other room

and he came back with a robe on.

And the robe was just an open robe.

I didn't even look

to see, you know...

I was just so stunned.

There was no, like,

suave moves or anything.

There was just a really

weird, awkward, "Will

you give me a massage?"

I had to say, just no.

He said, well, a lot

of other people do it.

I mean, so-and-so does it

all the time, and she's one

of my really good friends.

I said no, I'm not comfortable.

At one point he said...

If you won't let me kiss

you or touch you or something, God,

I don't know, will you at least lift

up your shirt and show me your tits?

He left the room and he came back.

And this time when he came back,

he was just fully naked.

I thought, he's coming after me.

You know in that moment that

you may not make it.

I said, you know, I can't believe

you're doing this to me.

You are undermining me in a way

that is so painful, you know?

And he...

I mean...

I don't know if he heard

me, but he may have.

I was able to finally get a way out.

I knew that if I went up

against Harvey Weinstein,

just instinctually,

I would be squashed.

So, I was scared.

So, I didn't say anything.

To the people that might have

been able to help me.

It began in Buffalo.

It all began in Buffalo.

It was a brash young fellow

from Flushing, Queens,

who arrived here as an 18-year-old

freshman at the

University of Buffalo.

I believe he only put in a year

before he was just kind

of mesmerised by all

of the opportunities

that awaited him here.

In Buffalo, Harvey Weinstein built

up a successful career

in the music business.

Then, in 1980, he

made his first film.

24-year-old Paula Wachowiak

applied to be an intern.

And he said, how would you like to

work on a movie I'm making?

So, I was excited.

I thought, yeah.

It was a gory film about a guy that

comes back for revenge

and murders people.

During filming, Paula says

she was asked to take some cheques

to Harvey Weinstein's hotel room

for him to sign.

I opened the door.

He was standing there, and he had

a hand towel around his waist.

So, all these things started flying

through my head, how calm

he was without his clothes on.

Which to me seemed unusual.

I handed him the folder,

and he dropped the hand towel.

And all the while he's asking me

questions about cheques.

And he sat down on the bed.

And he plopped

the folder on his lap.

And then he started saying,

what about this one?

And he's pointing.

And I'm not going to look down.

So I say, which one is that, Harvey?

Then he said, I have

a crick in my shoulder.

He said, could you give

me a massage, could

you rub it out for me?

And at that point I looked

at him and I said, Harvey,

I don't think that's

in my job description.

At the end of the shoot,

he said to me, just in this tone...

IN A SMUG AND FLIRTATIOUS TONE:

So,

was it the high point

of your internship to see me naked?

And I looked at him and I was like,

Harvey, no, you disgust me.

And he laughed.

Harvey Weinstein soon left

Buffalo for New York City.

Here, with his brother Bob,

he grew the company that

would make them famous -

Miramax.

They saw themselves as artists.

Outsiders to the Hollywood system.

At Miramax we are not under that

corporate pressure to say, Jesus,

we've got to go up each year.

We can do what we think is good,

and if our profits are lower next

year than they were the year

before, so what.

So what, as long

as we did good work.

I first met Harvey when he started

to come over to the UK.

What made Harvey so successful

is there is nobody around

who works harder than him.

Seemed to be able to speed read,

could consume books,

articles, films, scripts,

at a phenomenal rate.

Seems to have a photographic memory.

And he used that to power this kind

of insatiable lust for success.

Miramax's niche became making

the kind of movies that mainstream

Hollywood studios had ignored.

With a script or a book,

I try to do what would appeal to me.

And I'm not here to do

the mainstream movies.

I want to take the audience

on an incredible journey.

He became, basically,

the quality judge for a lot

of independent cinema

for many, many years.

At least two decades.

And it was because he had

an instinct for intense emotions.

And he could understand the basic

nature of drama in ways that many

business people wouldn't.

Come on, we got 'em.

Miramax was working with some

of Hollywood's top talent.

In 1992, Sean Young starred

in their new film, Love Crimes.

Who are you?

District attorney, asshole.

It was about a man who poses

as a photographer so he

could prey on women.

I play a character who discovers

this sexual predator

and then tracks them down.

The wire went out, I wanted

to get him on a felony

and I needed him on tape.

I was sitting in Harvey's

office after the picture.

And this is the only time

this has ever happened

to me, he pulled his...

Thing out, and my response

was, you know, Harvey.

I really wouldn't be

pulling that thing out,

because it's really not pretty.

And I got up and I left.

Actresses are expected to be

obedient, talented, and,

depending on the person, available.

But I upset a few important men.

And the trajectory of my

career went wooo...

The reason I didn't get another

movie with Harvey Weinstein was that

I made him feel foolish.

In 1993, Harvey Weinstein cut

a deal that gave Miramax

massive financial clout.

They were now being bankrolled

by the Disney company.

Miramax was one of the hottest

production companies in the world.

And Harvey Weinstein

was its leading man.

Working at Miramax was

like being in a cult.

The cult of Harvey.

I took the job in 1995 as president

of production for Miramax.

It was a long process

of seduction from Harvey.

I knew I was making

a deal with the devil.

I knew he was a bully.

I knew he was a dangerous character.

But I knew also that he

was at the epicentre

of where I wanted to be.

Once the deal was done,

everything changed.

In one of my first production

meetings at Miramax,

Harvey was getting angrier

and angrier, as he often did.

He turned to me, his president

of production and said,

"Well, what do you think,

Mr President of production?!"

So, immediately shrinking me

to kind of micro size.

And then he proceeded

to say something else.

I said, Harvey, that's not true.

And that was a cue for a tirade

of abuse, basically.

Which, you know...

I still remember with horror.

People that I knew within

the company were afraid.

They all knew that they had

the potential to work

on great movies, OK?

And the question was

always, is that worth it?

Oh, my love.

I thought you were dead.

A part in a Miramax film

could mean artistic

credibility, fame and awards.

In 1998, 26-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow

appeared in Shakespeare In Love.

The movie propelled her

to international stardom

and won both Paltrow

and Harvey Weinstein an Oscar.

This is a movie about life and art.

And art and life combining

is called Magic.

However, an ugly story had begun

to circulate around Hollywood.

We had heard that Gwyneth Paltrow

had been assaulted.

We heard it from a director

who was very upset about it.

And we thought, well, yeah,

we've got to try and do this.

Kim Masters was a journalist

working in Hollywood

with contacts inside Miramax.

Intermittently we would call

someone we knew who worked

there, someone who left.

But it was just, there was no path

forward at that point at all.

If you called their publicist

and said I want to talk

to Gwyneth Paltrow because I heard

she was attacked by Harvey

Weinstein, you can imagine how that

phone call would go.

It would be short.

Last year, Gwyneth Paltrow went

on the record about the rumours.

She didn't accuse Harvey Weinstein

of assault but told reporters that

when she was 22 years old he had

sexually harassed her.

He'd suggested a massage

in his hotel bedroom,

which she'd refused.

I remember one executive saying

that there are people

who are famous, and there are people

who are not famous.

And I was, like, OK the famous

people are not going to want to go

there, but what about those

who are not famous.

So, the question was who were they,

and we never got a name.

I mean, we never got a single name.

Harvey Weinstein had

a small army of assistants,

usually young women.

Bright and ambitious,

but with little experience

in the world of work.

For four years, Zelda Perkins was

employed in Miramax's London office.

He had a repertoire that included

constant requests of massage,

constantly appearing

in the room undressed.

His first meeting would usually be

8:30 in the morning,

and generally when you turned up

he would still be in bed.

So, he would have a habit of trying

to grab you from the bed

and say come on, you know,

come and have a cuddle,

come and lie down.

The first time that I travelled

alone abroad with him,

he insisted that I went

into the bathroom while he had a

sauna because he needed to do work.

And he was reeling off names

of all the actresses that he had had

some sort of sexual relations with,

or had given him

massages, or whatever.

And I remember looking

round at him and saying,

how do you look at

yourself in the mirror?

How do you do that?

I can remember him looking back

at me utterly nonplussed,

and saying I have no problem at all.

The Venice Film Festival

in 1998 was when things

really came to a head.

I had a new colleague with me

who was there to assist with Harvey.

She came to me in a very

distressed state, and told me

that he had assaulted her,

that he had attempted to rape her.

I was completely sideswiped by this,

because I honestly never

believed that Harvey

would physically overpower anybody.

I went straight to Harvey

and confronted him, and he swore

on the life of his wife and children

that absolutely

nothing had happened.

I was very aware of his tactics,

and swearing on the life of his wife

and children was a very familiar

get out of jail card.

Back in the UK, Zelda

and her colleague quit Miramax

and took legal advice.

There didn't seem to be

any recourse in terms

of bringing Harvey to justice.

We had no physical proof, we hadn't

gone to the police in Venice.

Really the only option that we were

given was to request damages.

During the negotiations,

Zelda and her colleague agreed

a payment of £125,000 each.

They were asked to sign

a nondisclosure agreement,

common in many media organisations.

But her agreement went

further than most.

This wasn't a normal

confidentiality agreement.

This wasn't us saying

that we weren't going to give

away corporate secrets.

This was a deeply personally

binding agreement.

Harvey Weinstein has admitted that

over the last 30 years he's

settled up to nine claims

of harassment against him.

When he settled with Zelda Perkins,

it was his brother and Miramax

co-founder Bob Weinstein

who provided the money.

He has said that he believed

it was to conceal affairs.

The use of NDAs on behalf

of Weinstein was an enabling factor.

It allowed him to silence

complaining victims and just see it

as a cost of doing business.

And learning that he could

successfully use NDAs to buy

silence, he also knew that he had

nothing to fear from continuing

with the behaviour that led

to the problem in the first place.

And again, and again, and again.

Zelda had been silenced, but she was

determined to fight back.

She wanted better protection

for women in the company

and a clause in the agreement that

could see him fired

if he paid off anyone else.

And that wasn't all.

We insisted that he had to go

to therapy, and I had to be present

in the first therapy session to make

sure that he talked

about the issues, and that there had

to be a big new HR policy that

informed all employees

of their rights.

Zelda successfully pushed

through most of her demands,

but when it came to the therapy

sessions there was a stalemate.

They kept holding us

off and holding us off,

and to be honest I was exhausted

and pretty broken from

the whole experience.

And I gave up, I gave up

pushing, and I actually...

I went abroad for a while.

And so I have no idea

whether he complied

with the therapy or not.

So you take your cheque,

and you try to deal

with it as best you can.

He got away with it for years just

on the strength of that.

Only a small circle of people knew

about the allegations being levelled

against Harvey Weinstein.

However, some of those who worked

for him were beginning

to connect the dots.

I think we were all complicit

because you were in there,

you are in the company,

it was part of doing

business at Miramax.

My memory is that I was fully aware

that Harvey was a serial womaniser,

that there would be times when you'd

be kicked out of the suite

of the Savoy or the Peninsula Hotel

in LA, and he would entertain.

But I think it didn't take too much

brain power to put it together that

a man who was so abusive

and bullying in every aspect

of his life would bring that abuse

into the sexual arena.

I think, looking back, that I did

know and I chose to suppress it.

I chose to hide from that fact.

Could I have done

anything at the time?

Well, I know that I prevented my

assistant being called

to the Savoy Hotel late at night.

I said no, you can't go.

So, obviously I was aware of that.

I didn't have the guts

to do anything about it,

I think the deal I'd made

with the devil was to my advantage.

Harvey Weinstein was now

Hollywood's most powerful

independent film producer,

and a regular at film festivals.

At Cannes, his films had won

the top prize three times.

A number of women also say

they were harassed or assaulted

by Harvey Weinstein here.

In 1998, I was 24,

modelling around the world.

I thought I was tough.

Zoe Brock joined the head

of her modelling agency

on a private trip to Cannes.

She hoped it would help her career.

I flew to the south of France,

and we were taken into

the Majestic Hotel to have dinner.

That was where I was

sat next to Harvey.

As the evening was drawing

to a close, Zoe's friends got

into a taxi and she says

Harvey Weinstein offered her a lift.

Then Harvey told us that

he'd spoken to everybody

and that they were going to join us

at the Du Cap, where he was staying,

which is 30 minutes out

of Cannes and quite remote.

My friends were never coming.

That was a blatant lie.

When they arrived at the hotel,

Harvey Weinstein's

entourage also melted away.

Zoe believes that he engineered

the evening so that she would

end up alone with him.

I was in this crazy old hotel

in the middle of nowhere,

and I remember sobering up, fast.

And then Harvey walked back

in and he was naked.

And that's a sight.

And I think Harvey knows

what a sight that is,

and that's part of it.

You know?

It's stunning, it's stunning

and discombobulating,

because this person has been acting

like a mentor, making you feel

like you're fabulous.

And all of a sudden there's a dick

in your face, literally.

So he's negotiating,

he's negotiating massage.

I want a massage, come

on give me a massage.

You know, let me give you a massage.

And he's rapid-fire and he takes

control of the situation.

I very cautiously and unwillingly

let him manoeuvre me

into his bedroom, and he started

to massage my shoulders.

Within seconds I knew

that there was no way this

was happening, and I got up,

and I bolted into the bathroom.

And he chased me.

I remember locking the door

and him being on the other

side of it and banging.

That's when I strangely

channelled this weird anger,

and I was fucking furious.

I screamed at him, put your fucking

clothes on you naughty fucking boy!

And I meant it.

And it worked.

I came out of the bathroom

and he was apologising,

and he started to cry.

He said something that

I have never forgotten,

and I never will for the rest

of my days, in between his tears,

"you don't like me because I'm fat."

Harvey Weinstein has not denied

Zoe Brock's allegations, but says

she is publicising her lawsuit

for damages against him.

The number of women allegedly

harassed by Harvey Weinstein

was growing, but it was still only

industry insiders who had

heard the stories.

And if journalists got too close,

Harvey Weinstein had friends

who could help him out.

Harvey liked to have a good

relationship with the media.

I guess because I'm a Brooklyn guy

and he's a Queens guy,

and most gossip columnists tend

to be gay or women or Brits,

and I was none of those

things, he took to me.

We'd spend some time

on the phone shooting the breeze

about what went on last night,

where were the parties,

what did you do.

You know, just a couple

of guys talking.

Benza says he'd heard nothing

about sexual misconduct,

but he did pick up a tip

about his friend having an affair.

I called him and he said it's not

true, it's not true, it's not true.

And then he called back and said OK,

there's something to it.

Let's try to work this out.

And he said look, I can't

afford this bad publicity,

I can't afford it.

Benza says they cut a deal.

He was paid to supply celebrity

gossip to Harvey Weinstein

so he could trade it with reporters

who dug up dirt on him.

The gossip industry is run

on the barter system.

If I've got a story

about you and you don't

want to print it you say hold it,

I'll get you something better.

And I'll say, you've got an hour.

And you'll come back in 15 minutes

with a better story,

and I'll print the other story

and save you.

That's done every day.

So what Harvey and I were

doing, it's always done.

Harvey Weinstein denies

there was any such deal.

TINA BROWN:

The real Harvey

was a very dark, very paranoid man.

He was just obsessed with knowing

where the remote glimmer of a piece

of bad press came from.

And I mean really trivial.

In 1999, Harvey Weinstein

had acquired a new way

to control his public image.

He set up his own magazine

and a publishing house.

It was my idea to create a magazine

that was a search engine

culturally for movies,

documentaries that could be a place

as a centre of thought.

That's about the best thing that

I ever came up with,

the rest of it is Tina Brown's.

When I went to work for him,

I found that the creativity

was really completely a sidebar.

The fact is that he really just

wanted to control me and it.

For him to have a magazine like Talk

was a way for him surround himself

in press protection.

Tina Brown believed

that he was commissioning articles

from journalists who had stories

about him he didn't want published.

I would be continually getting calls

from journalists who would say,

"I saw Harvey last night

and he commissioned a piece

for me about whatever."

And I would think, I don't want

you writing for this magazine.

I mean, it was usually some gossip

columnist or some kind

of somewhat nefarious writer

of tabloid journalism.

Over in the publishing division,

Tina Brown discovered that

Harvey Weinstein was giving out book

deals to people who

had never written before.

One of them was a stewardess

on a Miramax plane.

So it was, what was that for?

Was it because she'd seen things

he wanted to make sure didn't come

to the light of day?

Or was she somebody

that he found attractive?

I had no idea, but there was this

book advance with no due date.

That was the clue.

Despite Harvey Weinstein's control

of parts of the press,

journalist Kim Masters

was still pursuing her story.

I met him at the Peninsula Hotel

for the first time face-to-face.

I had written something he didn't

like, so he comes in very

aggressive, yelling and screaming.

"Why do you write

this shit about me?!

What have you heard about me?"

And I sort of had this now

or never think, and I said,

"I've heard you raped women."

He did not seem shocked or outraged.

You would expect a normal person

to say, what, how dare you.

There was none of that at all.

Harvey Weinstein confirms this

exchange took place.

He says he denied it and wasn't

shocked because he was already aware

of a rape allegation,

which he says was false.

He kind of believed, as he did

with reason for years to come,

that he was going to be untouchable.

In 2002, four years after leaving

Miramax, Harvey Weinstein's former

assistant Zelda Perkins got a call

out of the blue.

I picked up the phone and this

gentleman asked me directly

about whether I had an agreement

with Harvey Weinstein.

She was frightened.

And when I got her on the phone,

she was really terrified.

How did you find me?

I think I might have even said,

yes, when he said, do

you have an agreement with Harvey,

and then panicked and said,

no, no I haven't.

Yes I have!

No I haven't!

I can't talk to you.

I just knew that one thing

I absolutely, on fear of death,

I wasn't allowed to talk

to a journalist.

Zelda Perkins did not say any

more to Ken Auletta.

But like Kim Masters before him,

he confronted Harvey Weinstein.

I said, Harvey, tell me

about Zelda Perkins.

He rose and he clenched his fists

and he raised his shoulders

and he said, "This is a f..."

You can imagine "..an outrage,"

and he started screaming at me.

So I thought, he's going

to throw a punch at me.

So I stood up.

And at that point,

Harvey started to cry.

It was extraordinary.

And what he said was, Ken,

you're going to ruin my marriage.

These were consensual relationships

and if you publish this you're

going to destroy my family.

I wish I could have

nailed the guy in 2002.

The problem I had was that

I couldn't prove it.

Clearly, people knew

or suspected that Harvey

was a predator, a sexual predator.

And they kept their mouths shut.

Three years later, Bob

and Harvey Weinstein left Miramax

and started the Weinstein Company.

There followed an award winning run

of commercial and critical hits.

Thank you, Harvey Weinstein.

And of course, Harvey.

Harvey, thank you for killing

whoever you had to kill

to get me up here today.

LAUGHTER.

I just want to thank my agent,

Kevin Huvane,

and God -

Harvey Weinstein.

LAUGHTER.

APPLAUSE.

Feted by Hollywood's A-list, he was

still able to persuade young

actresses to meet him in hotel

rooms. Often here in Beverly Hills.

The Peninsula Hotel served

as not just an office

for Harvey Weinstein

when he was in LA, outside

of the official office

for his company, but also was kind

of ground zero for his

predatory behaviour.

In 2011, he invited

actress Jessica Barth

for a business meeting here.

He said that there was a role

in Sarah Jessica Parker's new film.

And then it very quickly shifted

to asking me to give him

a naked massage in the bed.

And I was like, I'm married.

I said, you are too, right?

And he said, yes, but we

have an arrangement.

I said, you know what, Harvey,

I'm about done with this

conversation right now.

So I left, I shut the door,

and I burst into tears.

I told my mother, and she

was devastated for me.

And then I told Seth MacFarlane.

He was a close friend of mine.

Good morning.

I'm Seth MacFarlane,

the host of the Oscars.

The 2012 nominees for best

performance by an actress

in a supporting role are...

When I first saw Seth say the joke

at the Academy Awards I was shocked.

Congratulations, you five ladies no

longer have to pretend to be

attracted to Harvey Weinstein.

LAUGHTER

I was like, good, I'm

glad he just did that.

I don't think people knew the extent

of what this man was capable of.

He definitely had a reputation

in Hollywood, but I guess

they still wanted to make movies

and collect their awards

and go on their merry way.

Harvey Weinstein has not denied

Jessica Barth's account.

Stories about Harvey Weinstein's

predatory behaviour were now

well known in Hollywood.

He commanded a movie empire

and was also growing a TV division,

working with broadcasters around

the world, including the BBC.

His longest running

show is Project Runway.

Welcome to the runway.

As you know, in fashion,

one day you're in,

and the next day, you're out.

Aspiring models and designers fought

it out to launch their careers.

I mean, as a man, I can

tell you that I like

girls to look like that.

It's my belief that Harvey has

structured his professional life

in order to have access to women.

He's used the movie industry

to have access to women.

And he's done exactly the same thing

with the modelling industry.

In 2014, Kadian Noble was building

a career as a model.

She first met Harvey Weinstein

at a Bafta party in London.

There's Oprah Winfrey,

there's Naomi Campbell.

The champagne is flowing.

There is everyone just

gliding across the room.

I was stood by the bar when Harvey

looked at me and he called me over,

is he talking to me!

He said to me, it's going to be

good for you, I have

something in mind for you.

I was just thinking,

oh my god, oh my god,

this is really happening.

The next time I bumped

into Harvey Weinstein was May 2014

at the Cannes Film Festival.

I was in the lobby

at the Majestic Hotel.

And he approached me

and again, I am, oh my God.

He said he hadn't had time

to look at my showreel

but if I was willing to go up

with him to have a look at it.

Of course I have it

with me, why not.

We walked it up to

his room, his suite.

He asked me to have

a seat on the sofa.

He then looked at me

and said, I want to know

that you really like me.

And I said to him, what do you mean?

I was really confused because I'm

thinking, what do you mean?

Genuinely, genuinely confused.

Then he gripped my arm

in a forceful way.

Really holding onto my arm.

He led me into the bathroom.

Kadian says that Harvey Weinstein

then sexually assaulted her.

He pulled my dress down

and I wasn't wearing a bra.

He was rubbing my breast.

He had me gripped.

Very tight.

And I was trying

to resist and say no.

I was saying, why.

He was telling me to relax, relax.

He was using his leg

to stroke my vagina from behind.

Pressing his leg from behind me.

He turned me around whilst

he unbuckled his trousers

and exposed his penis and said

to me, "Don't worry, I'm not

going to ask you to suck it."

And he started to

masturbate himself.

And he forced my hand and used my

hand to help him with the process,

until he ejaculated all over

the bathroom floor.

He just stepped over

as if nothing had happened.

And that was our moment

in the Majestic Hotel, May 2014.

It's not about sex.

It's not about sex,

it's always about power.

There's something particularly

violent about stories about Harvey.

There's like a ritualistic

humiliation quality.

It's rage, and it's anger,

and it's some form of deep-seated

power grab that goes way

beyond the situation in the room.

For decades, Harvey Weinstein had

managed to repress the stories

For decades, Harvey Weinstein had

managed to suppress the stories

about his sexual misconduct.

In 2015, that changed.

Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's

facing sexual assault

allegations this morning.

Police in New York confirmed

they are investigating

an accusation against Weinstein.

The Daily Nnews broke the story

initially, and it was...

You know, it was a fairly

cut and dried story.

22-year-old Italian model

Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.

Was invited for a business meeting

with Harvey Weinstein.

Ambra shows up at the offices

in Tribeca of Harvey Weinstein.

The story that she told is that

shortly after she came in,

Harvey Weinstein enquired

about whether her breasts

were real or not.

He groped her breasts.

He reached up her skirt

and he tried to kiss her.

Very quickly, it degenerates

from her coming up

there to discuss her career,

to her fighting this

guy off in his office.

Ambra went straight to the police.

Detectives put a plan in place.

Ambra would meet Harvey Weinstein

at a New York hotel

the following evening.

This time she would secretly

record the conversation.

After I left the hotel,

I was with the police.

They were super happy and saying,

wow, now this person

is completely finished.

You saved a lot of women.

The NYPD arranges to speak

with Harvey Weinstein.

He is denying that

anything happened.

And they thought this

was a prosecutable case,

which leads us then to the Manhattan

district attorney's office.

Before it got to the district

attorney, Harvey Weinstein hired

a corporate intelligence firm called

K2.

A former K2 employee agreed to speak

on condition of anonymity.

Harvey Weinstein came to K2

initially with a matter

that they probably wouldn't take

on if it was somebody else.

Nobody likes to develop information

on somebody who is accusing a client

of sexual misconduct.

But Harvey Weinstein

being Harvey Weinstein,

exceptions were made.

K2 says it won't comment

on client matters.

Harvey Weinstein says

he is entitled to defend himself

against allegations he knows

to be false.

K2's brief was to find information

that might undermine Ambra.

What they found was useful

to Harvey Weinstein.

Stuff started leaking

out of the Weinstein

camp about her past.

The New York Post then went

after the Italian model

with a story, secret life

of Harvey's shy accuser.

The paper says that she once filed

a sexual assault suit

against a 70-year-old,

quote, sugar daddy.

It lasted for, like, a week.

Everything was about me

being a blackmailer,

me being a prostitute.

The press reports were based

on evidence she had given

in an Italian court case.

She said she had been

sexually exploited as

a teenager by an older man.

The district attorney

asked her about the reports.

They were asking me questions

like are these news real, like,

you're a prostitute.

I was asking them, did

you hear the recording?

They were like, yes,

I heard it, but you have

to explain this situation.

In Italy it's very confusing.

The district attorney needed to be

sure she would be a credible

witness, but she had given

conflicting accounts

of what had happened in Italy.

They were questioning me

like I was a predator or something.

Like, guys, I mean, I'm the victim.

Journalists were briefed that Ambra

would be a problematic witness

and that the tape didn't

prove criminal intent.

There would be no charges.

Harvey Weinstein was off the hook.

You know, when I look back at that

time, nobody seemed to take a really

hard look at Harvey Weinstein,

but everybody just focused

on Ambra and nobody focused

on the guy that she accused.

With no prospect of a prosecution,

Ambra's lawyers thrashed

out a settlement.

Harvey Weinstein would

pay her $1 million.

It came with a

nondisclosure agreement.

There is a list of different

things I can't do,

and first of all is silence.

Even today, Ambra feels she has

to remain silent on what happened

in Harvey Weinstein's office

and the hotel the following day.

Step back, step back, step back.

Harvey Weinstein's

reputation was intact.

Thank you, Harvey.

And he still had his

powerful friends.

Harvey Weinstein was protected

by the liberal political system.

He rallied a lot of money in that

community and was known

for supporting good causes.

Over the years he had helped raise

millions for Aids research.

I'd like to open the

bidding at $50,000.

But in 2015, at the charity

where he was a patron,

there was a problem.

A dispute over the proceeds

of a fundraising auction.

The charity hired a lawyer

to look into precisely

what happened to the money.

During the course of our

investigation we had

to interview people.

We would say to them,

why did it go here,

why did it go there?

The response we would get would be,

well, before we get into that,

do you know that Harvey Weinstein

rapes women?

Do you know that Harvey Weinstein

is a sexual predator?

Now, we had no proof of that,

but this is what we were hearing.

It was very disturbing.

Word about this got back

to Harvey Weinstein.

He asked Ajamie to meet.

He said to me, Tom, you're spreading

rumours about me raping women.

And my response was Harvey,

I'm not saying that,

the community is saying

that about you.

And at some point he got

very angry and said,

you'd better be careful,

Tom, because I've investigated

you and you're not so

clean, so be careful.

When the meeting ended,

he ran up to me and got very close

to my face and said please,

please don't tell anyone.

Man-to-man, don't tell anyone

what you've learned about me.

And I said Harvey, I can't do that.

He walked out, he got

into the elevator, and I saw a very

sad and desperate man who was now

sticking his fingers in various

parts of the dyke and trying

to prevent the water from leaking

out and the entire dam from falling

and crashing down on him.

By now, the rumours had reached

the ears of magazine

and newspaper editors.

They set their reporters to turn

what had been Hollywood gossip

into publishable fact.

Harvey Weinstein was deploying

extreme countermeasures.

I encountered more fear really

than I'd encountered

with any other story.

I needed women who were willing

to go on the record,

and I just couldn't get them

to do that.

One woman, calling herself Anna,

seemed unusually willing to talk.

I was approached by a woman

who claimed to be a victim

of Harvey Weinstein's,

but it was very unusual

because I didn't know her last name.

We met at a cafe, and the main

dynamic of our conversation

was her pumping me for information

and revealing almost

nothing about herself.

Two weeks later she says she's

going to be back in New York.

I met with her, and she leaned

forward the entire time.

I was immediately

suspicious that she was

surreptitiously recording me.

Months later we find out

that she works for the Israeli

intelligence firm Black Cube,

and her name is

Stella Penn Pechanac.

One of the firms behind those

undercover agents was Black Cube,

an Israeli firm that

on their website touts the fact

that there are former Mossad agents

in their chain of command.

They really pride themselves

on being the most elite

at this kind of work.

False identities, front companies,

really the most elaborate kind

of human intelligence work

in the world.

Harvey Weinstein had hired

Black Cube to stop negative stories

about him being published.

They contacted former employees,

journalists and an actress who had

accused Harvey Weinstein.

Rose McGowan said he'd raped her.

A woman named Diana Filip reached

out to Rose McGowan,

and over the ensuing months

infiltrated herself

into Rose McGowan's life,

became her friend, they had ice

cream together, and it was

all completely fake.

This woman, Diana Filip,

secretly recorded tens

of hours of audio of her,

and routed back to Weinstein.

Diana Filip was in fact

Stella Penn Pechanac,

the same Black Cube agent who had

tried to find out what

Ben Wallace was up to.

Harvey Weinstein denies

raping Rose McGowan,

and says hiring Black Cube wasn't

an attempt to cover up abuse

but to investigate facts to show

that no abuse occurred.

Harvey Weinstein had now deployed

all the weapons at his disposal,

but journalists were still

coming for him.

This was Harvey

Weinstein's last stand.

In those frantic final days, a war

room of sorts started to assemble.

Anyone who could be

useful in forestalling

publication was brought in.

He used everything at his disposal.

Every contact, money, relationship,

favour that had been owed.

He called in every chit.

He was fighting like hell.

Things were really amped up,

and it seemed like it was coming

apart at the seams.

And then it did.

NEWSREADER:

The New York Times is

reporting bombshell allegations...

A scorching expose detailing decades

of rape, sexual assault...

Nearly 60 women now accuse

of misconduct ranging

from sexual harassment to rape.

I never thought there

was ever going to be a day

where I would have ever had a voice.

I felt this man had such high walls

built up around him,

I thought he was untouchable.

Realising that he was a serious

predator, and he had been

seriously abusing people,

abusing them with total

impunity for all this time.

And to have any part

of your life linked

with that is deeply upsetting.

The New York Times published

allegations of sexual misconduct

against Harvey Weinstein.

More serious allegations would

follow in the New Yorker magazine.

In a statement he said listen,

I'm going to take a leave of absence

and go and work on myself.

But simultaneously he was

also threatening to sue

the New York Times for our story.

In the full glare of the media

spotlight, he was fired

from his own company.

Then, the Attorney General

of New York launched legal action.

Had there been a cover up

inside the Weinstein Company?

There were lots of complaints,

not one formal investigation

by human resources,

by the corporation

into Harvey's conduct.

It's sort of unfathomable.

It is very difficult for anyone

who looks at the documents that

we've seen to believe

that there wasn't at least some

knowledge that he was engaged

in sexual misconduct.

We've never seen anything

as despicable as this.

Harvey Weinstein's PR people

say he's in therapy.

He's said he still hopes

to make a comeback.

I've got to get help, guys.

You know what?

We all make mistakes.

Second chance, I hope.

OK?

He doesn't sound sad and dejected.

He sounds a little bit...

..A little bit humiliated, but I

think he's gearing up for the fight.

I would not bet against him,

I really wouldn't.

I think Hollywood is a toxic place.

This is a filthy stables,

and Harvey is merely the guy who's

taken the biggest dump in it.

I think Harvey's career is over.

But, you know, who knows?

Anything can happen.

HE CHUCKLES.

Police in LA, New York and London

are now investigating allegations

made by 16 women of sexual assault,

including rape, stretching

back to the 1980s.

Harvey Weinstein has

denied all claims of

nonconsensual sexual conduct.

The concentric spreading circles

from the stone dropped into the pond

are spreading into British politics,

into American politics.

It's such an old story.

Women have been putting up

with this stuff for years.

Since I started speaking out

about this, I actually have been

so moved by how many people

have come forward.

Like, something's changing,

and I think we all feel it,

and the time is now.

But it wasn't then.

It saddens me that everybody woke up

because of Harvey Weinstein.

On the other hand, thank

God we've woken up.