Quentin Tarantino Admits He Knew About Harvey Weinstein’s Bad Behavior

Last week, Quentin Tarantino released a short and sweet statement on his bro forever, Harvey Weinstein. He said he needed time to “process” the entire ordeal.

“For the last week I’ve been stunned and heartbroken about the revelations that have come to light about my friend for 25 years Harvey Weinstein. I need a few more days to process my pain, emotions, anger and memory and then I will speak publicly about it,” Tarantino said in a statement.

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a REALLY hard time believing that he had no idea that his friend– a friend of 25 years, mind you– was such a giant perv.

Well, I guess his processing period is over. He’s jogged his memory, and now he’s ready to admit that he knew about Weinstein’s pervy behavior for a long time.

I know you’re all shocked.

“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he told the New York Times. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”

Oh. So that first statement was complete rubbish then, huh? He wasn’t really shocked or angry. He couldn’t have been, because he KNEW.

He even said his former actress girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, told him Weinstein touched her inappropriately and literally chased her around a hotel room when she rejected him.

“I was shocked and appalled,” he said. “I couldn’t believe he would do that so openly. I was like: ‘Really? Really?’ But the thing I thought then, at the time, was that he was particularly hung up on Mira.”

In other words, Tarantino KNEW Weinstein would do something like that in private. It’s the fact that Weinstein did it so openly. That’s what shocked and bothered him. But anyway, he dismissed it, because his poor little buddy just had a crush on Sorvino. That’s all.

“I thought Harvey was hung up on her in this Svengali kind of way,” the filmmaker added. “[And] because he was infatuated with her, he horribly crossed the line.”

He crossed the line so horribly that he continued to be friends with him.

One time another actress told Tarantino that Weinstein made unwanted advances her way, so Tarantino approached his friend and forced him to give what he now describes as a “weak” apology. By the way, Tarantino also knew all about Rose McGowan and did precisely nothing about it. But listen– he wishes he did!

“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” he said. “If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”

So Tarantino knew about Weinstein’s pervy tendencies but chose to dismiss them as random, isolated incidents. You know. Instead of recognizing this as a pattern of terrible, inexcusable behavior.

“What I did was marginalize the incidents,” he said. “Anything I say now will sound like a crappy excuse.”

Ya think?

He went on to throw everyone in Hollywood under the bus. Which…they deserve.

“Everyone who was close to Harvey had heard of at least one of those incidents,” he said. “It was impossible they didn’t.”

“I chalked it up to a ’50s, ’60s-era image of a boss chasing a secretary around the desk,” he continued. “As if that’s OK. That’s the egg on my face right now.”

As much as I hate the whole “well everyone else knew” excuse, he’s right. Hollywood as a whole was well aware and did nothing about it. They’re all awful. They allowed this behavior to run rampant, and they still do.

His own relationship with Mr. Weinstein, who has been fired from his own company and ousted from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, spanned deals and shoots, publicity tours and film festivals. But when Mr. Tarantino tried to call Mr. Weinstein several times recently after the disclosures, he said, he got no reply. Mr. Weinstein needs to “face the music,” he said.

 

Despite their closeness, he said he could offer no insight into Mr. Weinstein’s alleged misdeeds. “I don’t have an answer for why he could do this and be stripped of his entire legacy,” he said.

 

Asked how the news about Mr. Weinstein would affect how the public views his own record and body of work, Mr. Tarantino paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t.”

I don’t think anything is going to change. I really don’t .

h/t Lifezette