Harvey Weinstein was at an Arizona restaurant on Tuesday, Jan. 9, when a patron slapped him in the face twice and called him a "f***ing piece of s**t" while his friend recorded the entire incident.
In recent months, the producer's name — along with his alleged sexual improprieties — have spread like wildfire across social media. Weinstein has been expunged from Hollywood circles following damning reports of his sexual misconduct, which often involved luring women into private meetings, asking them for sexual favors, then ruining their movie careers if they rebuffed him.
Weinstein, who's reportedly undergoing therapy in Arizona, was dining at a Scottsdale restaurant with his coach when a man approached him and told him he loved his movies, promptly asking for a selfie, TMZ reports. When he was turned down, the two shook hands and the man returned to his seat — but when Weinstein got up, the man prevented him from leaving the premises.
The man, who admitted to TMZ that he was slightly intoxicated at the time of the incident, told his friend to start recording and then walked up to Weinstein. In the clip, he tells the producer to "get the f***k out of here" and backhands him twice in the face. He added: "you're such a piece of s**t for what you did to these women." Weinstein, who doesn't retaliate, simply leaves.
Weinstein didn't report the incident to the cops, but a spokesman for Paradise Valley police said his department knew what went down. A spokesperson for Weinstein confirmed the events described indeed happened.
The former head of The Weinstein Company has been accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct, including rape, since October. He has since been banned from the Producers Guild of America, dismissed from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and fired from his own company.
The accusations were too much for Hollywood to bear, but many artists admitted that they had known such things were going on but failed to speak up accordingly.
Soon after the initial accusations, multiple reports that came out shortly added to the increasingly expansive and long-standing pattern of sexual abuse by the producer, and it helped give rise to the #MeToo movement, where women are speaking up about their experiences with sexual harassment — not just in Hollywood but in all industries dominated by men.
New York, Los Angeles, and London police are presently investigating Weinstein and his alleged sexual misconduct. The LAPD recently sent two sex crimes cases to the district attorney for review.
