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Sympathy for the devil: Doesn’t Harvey Weinstein deserve pity, too?

2 0
14.12.2025

As I watched Harvey Weinstein hand himself into the police last week, the scalp the #MeToo movement most desperately craved, it was hard not to feel a scintilla of sympathy – certainly until it’s proved he’s a rapist and not just a determined sex pest.

Is it wrong to suspect virtually all men, if they thought they had the slightest chance of success, would have tried it on with the some of the women who’ve accused Weinstein? Hollywood starlets get paid according to how desirable they are. Angelina Jolie, in her prime, which is when she says Weinstein harassed her, was enormously desirable – desirable to the tune of more than $20m a movie. Gwyneth Paltrow, who says she was made to feel uncomfortable by the movie mogul, was also hugely desirable. These women were sex symbols for a reason.

I suspect over the years Weinstein’s attitude to women might have become a little separated from reality. As he rose up Hollywood’s insanely competitive pole, I wouldn’t be amazed to hear a large number of the world’s most stupendously desirable women began chucking themselves at him – more, say, than if he had been just a fat man, and not the most powerful film producer in Hollywood with the ability to hand out life changing leading roles like sweets. I wouldn’t even be surprised if his attitude to the sanctity of loving sexual intercourse became somewhat warped by this superabundance of opportunity. Hollywood is a town famously built on sex – brimful of beautiful people who will do whatever it takes to get ahead. Can we really be surprised when maniacs are made?

As is almost always the case with sex war, satyr is the first casualty. Fat Harvey hunched........

© The Spectator