Everyone From Runway Now Suing Harvey Weinstein
When it moved Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime, Weinstein Company transformed the latter cable network from overearnest television for spinsters into something more chic and cheeky, or so some people said at the time. Weinstein Company was promptly sued by Bravo parent NBC Universal, which won an unexpected victory in court and impounded the show. Lifetime has been stewing, bitterly, and yelling at its cats, like a spurned mistress, and now Lifetime has decided it's going to sue Harvey Weinstein's company, presumably for being a slimy jerk who said the divorce was final when really he wasn't even separated yet. This makes 2008 the year of total meltdown for Weinstein:
- Bravo is developing a Runway copycat while it keeps the show bottled up in court. Some of the program's original producers are involved. Harvey is pissed.
- Weinstein Company lost four executives in six months.
- Weinstein lost and agreed to pay a $1 million bet, a bet that would have paid him nothing had he won.
- The New York press Weinstein used to believe he controlled began to turn on him.
- The fashion company Weinstein paid $25 million for got tepid reviews on its new line.
- Weinstein's Facebook for Millionaires saw traffic decline.
- His charitable giving was questioned as perhaps too low.
- Stock in in his home-video distributor declined to less than one-tenth its prior value.
The mogul at this point would be well advised to get any more disappointments out of the way over the next 40 days or so, so he can hit rock bottom and try to redeem and restart himself in 2009. Now that would make for a fresh reality show.