Who Is Out to Get the Weinsteins?
Is someone is out to get Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob? Yesterday Gawker posted an "exclusive" conversation between Weinstein and Joe Roth; today Page Six reveals it got the same tape and that a former Miramax employee "is writing an 'explosive' book about their management of Miramax, based on files and tapes compiled over a period of 15 years." The author of the book is anonymous, but Page Six misses what may be the clearest sign that whoever is behind the spectacle isn't playing with a full deck: "Many of the files and tapes we are working from were given to us by the late Stuart Meltzer, who worked directly for Bob as his assistant before he was killed in the World Trade Center attack in 2001. Stuart was extremely paranoid and saved and recorded everything." Except Stuart wasn't employed by Miramax. He was a 32-year-old energy broker at Cantor Fitzgerald when he died on Sept. 11. So that raises a big flag.
Someone has some juicy bits, as the Weinstein-Roth tape makes clear. In addition to the leaked tape, there was also a story by Tony Ortega in the Voice this week, which is now looking more suspicious than ever. Ortega claimed he came across a treasure trove of inside Weinstein info after stumbling over Weinstein's trash on the street. So we're supposed to believe that the same week that a former Weinstein insider starts sending out info to gossip outlets is the very same week the Voice editor accidentally comes across Weinstein's personal files on a street corner? Only one of Harvey and Bob's cheesiest action films would expect us to believe a coincidence like that!