Disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein sought help from Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, and Tim Cook in the weeks after dozens of women publicly came forward and accused the former Miramax boss of sexual misconduct, according to a new report. Weinstein also wrote in an email that “Jen Aniston should be killed,” in a reference to the Friends star.
The New York Times reported on court documents unsealed Monday showing that Harvey Weinstein reached out to several prominent and wealthy entertainment and political figures in the hopes that they would help save his career. The list also includes Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBCUniversal, and Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Netflix.
Weinstein is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on Wednesday and faces up to 29 years in prison for felony sex crime and rape. His lawyers are asking for a jail term of five years, saying that anything more than 12 years would constitute a “life sentence.”
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, alongside award recipients Bob Weinstein, left, and Harvey Weinstein, right, attend the eighth annual Made in NY Awards on Monday, June 10, 2013 in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
The newly unsealed documents shine a light on Weinstein’s vast network of business associates, which reached to the highest echelons of Hollywood and the New York business world. In a letter to Mike Bloomberg, Weinstein asked the media billionaire and former mayor of New York for his help to stop the Weinstein Co. board from firing him.
“Dear Michael, My board is thinking of firing me,” Weinstein wrote in an October 2017 email, according to documents obtained by Times. “All I’m asking for is, let me take a leave of absence and get into heavy therapy and counseling whether it be in a facility or somewhere else, and allow me to resurrect myself with a second chance.”
Weinstein sent a similar note to Amazon founder and the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos.
“There are many false allegations and over time, we’ll prove it but right now I’m the poster boy for bad behavior,” he wrote to Bezos in a message dated Oct. 8, 2017. “I don’t need you to make any public statements — just a private one to my Gmail…saying that you support me getting therapy and the help I need before the board fires me.”
In one shocking email exchange, Weinstein wrote that actress Jennifer Aniston “should be killed” following a report in the National Enquirer alleging that he had groped the Friends star.
“Jen Aniston should be killed,” Weinstein wrote to a reporter on Oct. 31, 2017. Aniston has never publicly alleged that Weinstein groped her. A publicist for the actress told the Times that Weinstein “never got close enough to her to touch her” and “she has never been alone with him.”
The newly unsealed documents also contain a scathing message from Weinstein’s brother, Bob, according to the report. Bob Weinstein worked alongside his brother for years at Miramax and later at the Weinstein Co.
“U deserve a lifetime achievement award for the sheer savagery and immorality and inhumanness (sic,) for the acts u have perpetrated,” Bob Weinstein wrote to his sibling. “I pray there is a real hell. That’s where u belong.”
Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and sexual assault in a New York court last month, but was acquitted of more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape. The Shakespeare in Love producer still faces criminal charges in Los Angeles.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.