Hollywood Ending: Author Ken Auletta and the demise of Harvey Weinstein on Takin A Walk

Buzz Knight

Taking a walk with Buzz Knight. Well, I’m Buzz Knight. I’m the host of the Taking a Walk podcast series. And everybody has a story to tell, and our guest today has investigated stories during his storied career. He inaugurated his column, the Annals of Communications with countless other outstanding columns for The New Yorker, starting back in the early ninety s. I became hooked by his writing instantly, and he’s written national bestsellers, including Three Blind Mice how the TV Networks Lost Their Way, Greed and Glory on Wall Street, the Fall of the House of Lehman, and Google the End of the World as We Know It. His new book is called Hollywood Ending Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence. And please welcome to the Taken a Walk podcast. Even though it’s virtual, we like doing these in person when possible, but when the opportunity existed to speak to Mr. Auletta about his book, I gladly jumped on it. So welcome, Ken Auletta to the taking a walk podcast.

Ken Auletta

Thanks, Buzz, good to be here.

Buzz Knight

It’s an honor to speak to you. You take on the notorious quite frequently in your investigation. What goes into your process when you select a book topic?

Ken Auletta

 interest, curiosity? I mean, in Harvey’s case, I had profiled him in the New Yorker in 2002. I came very close to being able to nail him as a sexual predator, but I couldn’t get any women to go on the record, so we couldn’t run it, and he denied. So I had his denial, and I had no counter to that. And then when he was exposed by two New York Times reporters, and then Ronan Farrow and The New Yorker in October of 2017, I was left with several questions that it seems to me merited an exploration. One, what made Harvey Weinstein the monster he became? The sexual monster he became? When I profiled him in 2002, I portrayed and tried to explain why he was such an abusive boss and the people in Hollywood, but the sexual side of it, where did that come from? I was interested in that. Two, how did this guy get away with abusing women for four decades and no one ever blew the whistle on? People had to know. And when you interview people who work for him, they said, well, we knew he cheated on his wife. Well, didn’t many know more than that? I wanted to explore that. Third, I thought Harvey was an interesting profile of power, how power is used and abused. He was a master at it, so I thought that would be a fascinating angle to explore. And lastly, I was fascinated by the relationship between the brothers. His younger brother Bob, two years younger, and he had been best friends, full business partners, three years, and by the end, they got into a bloody fist fight. And Bob hasn’t spoken to Harvey since early 2018. So what happened? Dynamics of that relationship was also something that propelled me to want to do a biography of Harvey Weinstein.

Buzz Knight

Well, and I know you were further attracted into this unattractive character when you went to sit in the courtroom during his trial, right? I mean you were there every day pretty much, weren’t you?

Ken Auletta

I was there every day. And I was fascinated by Harvey, the assertive Harvey when you watched him in court. And I always took the aisle seat in the fourth row which gave me a direct line of sight to Harvey sitting at the defense table. I was stunned at how passive he seemed that the aggressive, domineering Harvey suddenly was receding in that courtroom and as a women would testify against them, sometimes he would fall asleep. And I was just really surprised by that but also interested in that.

Buzz Knight

Were you freaked out when he looked at you sometimes in the courtroom? I mean, with that look of his?

Ken Auletta

Well, Harvey actually at one point his best friend, Doctor William Currao, who we’ve been a Buffalo University Buffalo roommate years before, came to trial with Harvey many days. And I went up to, during a break in the court proceedings, I went up to introduce myself to Dr. Currao and I said I’m doing a book on Harvey, why we talk. He said, well, let’s go in the car outside and talk. And as soon as he said that, Harvey, who was seated just inches away, said Bill, don’t talk to him. And Harvey doesn’t like me. He didn’t like the profile I did in 2002. In the end though, surprisingly, Harvey and I had email exchanges from prisons where he did answer some of my questions, not all of my questions, but some of them. And I think he did that just as a defensive mechanism. He knew I was writing a biography of him and no one else was doing one and he wanted to try and protect himself.

Buzz Knight

Well, I didn’t bring my stenographer here for this taking a walk. And I don’t want to destroy that story, obviously, because that’s a key element here. But do you want to talk a little bit about that exchange that at least occurred there right up to almost you publishing this book?

Ken Auletta

Well, I was very persistent in wanting to interview Harvey and I would be talking to his public relations person, Juda Engelmayer, very talented and I thought a fairly straight shooter as these folks go and come. But I said I want to interview Harvey. And he said Harvey didn’t want to talk. And then finally he comes back. He said, Harvey will grant you an interview if you agree to ask him any negative things that he has not replied to already, you will present to him so we’ll have an opportunity to respond to it. I said I would gladly do that but I want to be able to ask any questions I want. And they said no. I said, Deal breaker. Over. So a week later I got another call from his representative saying Harvey would agree to talk with no taping. I said, Dealbreaker, no. A week later, Harvey comes back again because obviously he wants to do it. And I was in a stronger negotiating position, I thought. He said, no transcript, no transcription of this. I said, Deal breaker. No. I need a tape and the transcript. And finally they said, Only ask the negative questions. I said, no, I want to be able to ask all my questions.. After about two months of negotiations, he finally relates and agrees on my terms. I could ask any question I want. I could tape it, and I can’t have it transcribed later. He’s not allowed in prison to have Internet. You can’t be on the Internet, but you could be on the phone. So I would do it on the phone. And the presumption is that we have multiple phone interviews because he’s generally only allowed about an hour for a phone call. And I was driving into New York the next morning to meet at his lawyer’s office with Harvey on the phone from the prison in Buffalo and his La. Lawyer. He’s got a trial coming up in Los Angeles in the fall. His La. Lawyer calls me and says, Mr. Auletta. I’m Harvey’s lawyer. I cannot allow my client on the eve of trial in Los Angeles to risk talking to you on the record about what he’s going to be tried about. And so that ended that. So we didn’t have that interview. And then I went back to his PR person. I said, would Harvey answer email questions? And then he agreed to answer. But the big questions I wanted to ask, including this one, he didn’t answer. I wanted to ask him, harvey, when you put your head on the pillow at night after raping, let’s say, Jessica Mann, who was one of the women who tested out against him at the criminal trial after raping Jessica Mann, how did you explain to yourself what you had just done? And I’m fascinated by what his answer would have been. He didn’t answer that question. I suspect his answer would have been, it was a fair trade. She wanted something from me, a career in Hollywood. I was willing to help her, but I wanted something from her. She was a grownup. She knew what she was willingly. It was consensual. She wanted to do it. And I think that in his fevered mind, that would be the explanation, I suspect.

Buzz Knight

I think it’s so fascinating how the book digs into the darkness of Harvey going back, obviously, to the college years in Buffalo, and even going back to that by line that he shared with Corky Burger in the student newspaper called Denny the Hustler. I mean, Ken, after I read that, I had to go take a shower.

Ken Auletta

Well, not only that, but Corky, , years later told the Buffalo newspapers I didn’t write a word of that. It was all Harvey. But it gives you a premonition of what was percolating in that fevered mind of Harvey.

Buzz Knight

Were you surprised? How far back his behavior spanned?

Ken Auletta

Well, what actually surprised me in trying to analyze what made Harvey the sexual predator he became when I reported with his childhood friends and I went back to junior high school and high school there was no evidence of him abusing women. Very little evidence in dating women. Actually, when he went to the University of Buffalo the first three years before he dropped out at the end of his junior year I could find no evidence of him abusing women. When Harvey’s abuse began is when he had power and fame as the head of a big, successful rock promotion company Harvey and Corky Presents. And that’s when he first abused women. And as best I could detect, the first woman he raped was Hope Damore who was an assistant of his at Harvey and Corky Presents who he raped at a New York hotel.

Buzz Knight

So did you ever study psychology in your schooling? Because it seems like you might have.

Ken Auletta

Well, I did. But I also spent a fair amount of time talking to psychologists about rape and about people like Harvey. They acknowledge that we’re not talking about Harvey Weinstein. He hasn’t been a patient of ours. We haven’t studied him. But they helped describe what makes a rapist and why women more importantly, in terms of the trial why women who are raped often keep in touch with the person who raped them. Because the weakness of the case against Harvey in the criminal trial in New York was the six women who testified against four of them continued to have a relationship with Harvey after he sexually abused in some cases even having consensual sex. And two of them had consensual sex. But we’re certainly keeping in touch with him wanting to get ahead in the movie business. And he was their potential ticket for getting ahead, they thought. So the prosecution had described why would women do that? And that was a weakness they had to get over in order to convict Harvey. And among the things they did on the stand they got the women to acknowledge why they continued to keep in touch with Harvey. And they had various reasons for this. I was in denial. I blamed myself. I was afraid of Harvey and his power. They give all sorts of reasons. But then they did something else. They called to the stand Dr. Barbara Ziv who was an expert on rape at Temple University in Pennsylvania. And she said that one fact she cited and it just sticks in your mind. 40% of the women in America who are raped continue to have relations and conversations with the person who raped which. Again. Helps explain and gives a reason why these women kept in touch with Harvey and allowed the jury to see them in a different light rather than being ambitious. Aggressive women who were just over ambitious for their careers as Harvey’s defense is claiming they would allow the jury to see them as victims.

Buzz Knight

When you really, as you do in the book go up close and deep here do you ever feel sorry for the messed up flaws that this guy that had everything really exhibits?

Ken Auletta

I don’t feel sorry for Harvey because Harvey was guilty and deserved, I believe, to be convicted and sentenced to jail. I often do think. Since I’m a human being and he’s even being as monstrous as his behavior was what it must be like for him to go from the pinnacle of power as he had from doing these amazing movies which he distributed or produced I mean. Just think of the galaxy of movies My Left Foot. Crying Game. Sex Lives in Videotape. Shakespeare and Love amazing array of movies that he’s also and the talent to do those movies was real. For him to go from that pinnacle of power standing on the Academy Award stage as often as he did to suddenly eating baked beans in a prison sitting in a wheelchair, which he is with a stent in his heart and blind in one eye and high cholesterol, severe diabetes taking 20 pills a day. How could you not think about what’s going through that man’s mind and how painful it must be for him? Even if he thinks, as he does, that he’s a victim he’s still every day getting up in a prison hospital ward and in eating that starchy food.

Buzz Knight

You talked about Bob’s brother. Earlier we learn about Bob and the role Bob played. Bob wasn’t the nicest guy either.

Ken Auletta

Right? Bob one of the things they both grew up in a home. One of the things I discovered in the reporting dominated by their mother, Miriam and one of the things Miriam did was yell all the time, particularly at Harvey. Harvey, you’re too fat. Harvey stopped eating that. Harvey, what are you doing? She yells so much that the friends harvey and his friends who play poker every weekend at a different home his friends refuse to play poker at Harvey’s. Why? Because Miriam yelled too much and made them too uncomfortable. And Bob and Harvey, if you look at their life in the movie business they yelled all the time. That was clearly a carryover from what mirror normalized in their household. So Bob yelled as Harvey yelled and Bob could be an abusive boss. But Bob became an alcoholic at some point and went into Alcoholics Anonymous and therapy and from that came out a somewhat different person much more sensitive. Much more reflective looking at his inner self and trying to be which I think he became a better human being certainly a better human being than Harvey and never accused of the kind of behavior with women that Harvey was and in the end he would constantly press his brother. Press Harvey. Harvey, you need treatment. You’re a sex addict. He knew Harvey cheated on his wife. He says he didn’t know, though I pressed him hard on. He says he didn’t know that Harvey abused women sexually. But in any case, Bob, as you watch Bob over the years, as I did in this book, he begins to change and became a better person. Not a perfect person and had his share of enemies as well, but a better person.

Buzz Knight

So you’ve had no contact since the book has come out from Harvey, is that correct?

Ken Auletta

Oh, correct. I had no contact outside of the email exchange. Whatever happened. I would send an email to his PR person who would then read it to Harvey on the phone. Harvey would then dictate his response because he’s not allowed to have internet connections himself. But I’ve never talked to Harvey and all through trial wouldn’t talk to me. He talked to me. And I have taped interviews from my 2002 profile in New York. I have 12 hours of tapes and then I have the email exchanges that he dictated from prison in response to my questions. And obviously all his people talk to me. I did over 200 interviews for the book, particularly Bob. Bob was a particularly valuable source for me, particularly talking about the mother, the father, growing up, the early years of Mirramax and why he stopped talking to his brother.

Buzz Knight

So what would you say to him in closing? If you would talk to him or have communication with him? What would you say to him now?

Ken Auletta

Harvey, tell me. You’re sitting in prison. You’re about to go on trial in Los Angeles. The second trial. There’s talk that you may be tried also in London for a series of sexual behavior misbehavior there. What goes through your mind? How do you feel? How do you explain what you did to the world and to yourself? Those are some of the questions. I mean, when I prepared to do interviews with him I spent many hours preparing just pages and pages of questions that I would ask him. I cited one before when he put his head on the pillow over the side. But there are many others I wanted to ask including about his mother , who Bob asked. But I’m going to tell you Bob Harvey’s response to that as well. But I’d be fascinated talking to her.

Buzz Knight

And as far as you know, he and Bob have not communicated?

Ken Auletta

No, they don’t talk. Bob at one point when he thought Harvey had copied it was rumor in the press he had Covid actually did, by the way. But Bob didn’t know that. Bob reached out through Bill Currao, Harvey’s best friend, and said, is my brother OK? I’d like to talk to him. And Harvey sent a message back to Currao who wrote to Bob and I printed the text of that when he wrote, Harvey wants to know why you want to talk to him. And Bob’s response to that was, I’m his brother. I was concerned about his health. And he’s treating me like a person who wants to do an interview first time, when he’s at the pinnacle of power. And my brother is not a human being. He doesn’t have any ability to look inside himself, to have express regret, express guilt. One of the things when you study, which I tried to do for this book, what makes associated and the psychologists say there are three basic ingredients to define a sociopathic. One is narcissist. Harvey’s a narcissist. Two is lack of empathy. If you watched Harvey listening to the woman who testified against the trial and basically ignoring it, sometimes falling asleep, clearly he lacked empathy. And third is lack of guilt. Harvey has no guilt. He thinks himself as a victim. Now, you could have all three of those qualities and not be sociopathic, but Harvey’s behavior suggests that he was

Buzz Knight

The books called Hollywood Ending Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence. Ken I’m very grateful that you were part of the Taking a Walk podcast series and continued great work, as always, and thank you for taking the time.

Ken Auletta

Thank you.

Buzz Knight

 Taking a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.

After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.