I spoke to Harvey Weinstein on Monday night.
‘Harvey…how’s your life?’ I asked, winning myself the Most Stupid Question of the Year Award.
He sighed loudly, paused for a second or two, then chuckled, wryly.
‘My life? It’s really not that great right now to be honest, Piers…’
At the time, he was still fighting to save his movie mogul career, and his marriage, after the New York Times bombshell report disclosing he had paid off eight women for sexual harassment.
Weinstein asked to go off-the-record, and we talked for another minute or so before I heard urgent mutterings and he suddenly said: ‘I have to go….this is a very important call… I’m sorry… I’ll call you straight back.’
He didn’t call back.
Within 24 hours, a blizzard of horrific new revelations erupted in the New York Times and New Yorker magazine featuring fresh allegations against Weinstein from myriad famous and non-famous women of rape, sexual assault and harassment.
Perhaps that ‘very important call’ was from one of those publications, or his lawyer, who knows?
It doesn’t really matter now.
As I write this, Harvey Weinstein’s career is gone, his marriage is gone, and his reputation as one of the greatest, and most successful, power brokers in Hollywood history is gone too.
Fired by his own company, and dumped by his wife Georgina, beleaguered Weinstein has escaped to a sex addiction clinic somewhere in Europe.
It’s a staggering fall from grace, even by the brutal standards of Hollywood.
Yet it’s a fall that deserves not a scintilla of sympathy, given the scale of his appalling behaviour.
I’ve known Weinstein for a decade.
He’s an unquestionably brilliant movie producer – his films have generated over 300 Oscar nominations – and a very smart, charismatic guy.
I’ve only ever seen the best side of Harvey: the fast-talking, quick-witted, pugnacious, determined and driven side with a genuinely passionate love for film.
I’ve always got on very well with him and enjoyed his company, and hope he gets the treatment he clearly needs.
But now we’ve seen another side exposed, one that’s made very grim reading: that of a ruthless, selfish, bullying, misogynist prone to harassing women into trading sexual favours for movie roles.
We’ve also heard the tape – that shocking minute-long wire-tapped audio of him terrorizing a young, frightened actress outside his New York hotel room, a woman he admits to having groped the day before.
You can’t hear it without feeling utterly repulsed.
Nor can you hear it without now believing every word all his other accusers are saying.
As Weinstein himself admitted: ‘I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain.’
Yes, it has.
And I applaud the courageous women who first came forward last week to lift the lid off Weinstein’s decades of depravity when he was still in a position of great power to make or break their careers.