Quentin Tarantino 'knew about' Harvey Weinstein

The rise of Quentin Tarantino in the mid 90s went hand in hand with the rise in power and status of Harvey Weinstein and his production company Miramax. The Weinstein brothers have had a hand in the production or distribution of every film by Tarantino, from his debut Reservoir Dogs to his massive 1995 hit Pulp Fiction to his recent western The Hateful Eight. Following the past week of allegations of sexual abuse and assault levied at Weinstein, the film industry has been waiting to hear what one of his closest collaborators had to say about these reports. Yesterday Tarantino gave an interview to the New York Times, and it’s a big fat mea culpa. “I knew enough to do more than I did,” he said.

In the first few days after the sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein became public, Quentin Tarantino put out a message via his friend Amber Tamblyn saying he was “stunned and heartbroken” by the news, and promised a full statement down the line. That statement has come in the form of an hourlong interview with the New York Times, the paper that first broke the Weinstein story.

From Quentin Tarantino: pic.twitter.com/jv0VQNrI91

— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) October 13, 2017

Tarantino admits to have having heard stories about Weinstein's misconduct, including accounts from friends who had been subject to sexual abuse at the hands of the producer. “I knew enough to do more than I did,” he told the NYT. “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.” This includes knowing that Rose McGowan was paid a settlement after accusing Weinstein of assault and that his former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, had been harassed and hounded by the producer.

Tarantino clearly regrets continuing to work with Weinstein with this knowledge, and not taking the other rumours he’d heard about Weinstein more seriously. “I chalked it up to a 50s-60s era image of a boss chasing a secretary around the desk,” he said. “As if that’s OK. That’s the egg on my face right now.”

The director owns up to his own culpability in turning a blind eye to sexual misconduct in Hollywood (“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him”), and he calls on other leading figures in the industry to do the same.

“I’m calling on the other guys who knew more to not be scared,” he told the paper. “Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters. What was previously accepted is now untenable to anyone of a certain consciousness.”

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Read Tarantino's full interview at the New York Times