Harvey Weinstein speaks to Maer Roshan Photographed by Ben Myers When my interview with Harvey Weinstein was published in these pages last month, the reaction was immediate and intense.
Within a day, thousands of comments flooded social media, with more pouring in to THR. The story ricocheted globally, picked up across Europe, India and beyond, reigniting debate about Weinstein’s crimes and battered legacy. In keeping with the tenor of the moment, a few responses crossed a more personal line — including texts to my cellphone that read, “We know where you live, you pedo Jew.”
For many, Weinstein’s reappearance felt like a visit from an unwelcome ghost. “No one wants to hear from this monster” was a common refrain. And yet plenty of people did. Millions of readers engaged with the interview, which spent days among the most-read pieces on our site. I heard from hundreds who valued the chance to grapple with something more complicated than a slogan.
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None of this came as a surprise. I had spent six months pursuing the interview, braved a blizzard on my way to Rikers and still woke up with a pit in my stomach on the morning it was slated to come out. I knew how combustible it would be. Its impending publication stirred skepticism — and alarm — even inside THR. In the end, I published it for two simple reasons: It was newsworthy, and it was interesting. Which, to my mind, remain the primary standards by which journalism should be judged.
Weinstein is one of the most consequential figures Hollywood has produced in the past half-century — a man who reshaped independent film, dominated the Oscars and, through his downfall, helped trigger a global reckoning that still reverberates. We published the interview in our Oscar issue because few people have cast a longer shadow over that ceremony, for better and for worse.
Since his arrest, Harvey had largely gone silent. He did not testify at trial. He had not given an extended interview. This was a chance to question him at length — to put him on the record.
My interest in this story was personal as well as professional. Early in my career, I worked alongside Weinstein at Talk magazine under Tina Brown, at the height of his power. I watched his dazzling fall with shock and fascination. What had he learned from this ordeal? What, if anything, remained of the man after such a spectacular collapse?
I went into the interview acutely aware of his victims, determined to do nothing that would soften his crimes. I challenged him repeatedly — about his apology, his dismissal of his accusers, the gulf between his self-image and the verdicts of three juries. The result was not flattering, nor was it meant to be.
The man who emerged was foul, self-pitying and delusional — eight years of incarceration have produced nothing resembling genuine remorse. And yet, at moments, he was also recognizably human: engaged by Hollywood gossip, animated by movies, at times even oddly personable. That contradiction is hard to sit with. We prefer our villains flat and two-dimensional. Real people are more complicated than that.
The job of journalism is not to portray life as it should be. It is to portray life as it is — however messy or distasteful. That idea once felt self-evident. Increasingly, it does not. Too often now, reporters and editors are expected not merely to inform but to shield audiences from people or ideas deemed too noxious to confront.
None of that changes who Weinstein is or what he did. Long after this interview is forgotten, he will still be living out a grim existence behind bars. His own review of our interview was probably most telling.
In the weeks before publication, he had phoned me repeatedly, pressing his case in tightly rationed 15-minute bursts. After the story ran, the calls stopped. Then, on Oscar night, as I approached the Dolby, my phone rang. Weinstein was furious — yelling about his portrayal, about quotes that didn’t make the final cut, about the full video not yet posted. “Harvey,” I reminded him when his outburst was over, “I don’t work for you anymore.”
Maer Roshan, Editor-in-Chief
This story appeared in the April 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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