Harvey Weinstein allegedly received information from a reporter who claimed to have dirt on actress Rose McGowan
- An executive for a company that publishes the National Enquirer reportedly shared information from one of its reporters with disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.
- The information obtained by the reporter included an unflattering interview with actress Rose McGowan, who has accused Weinstein of rape.
An executive for a company that publishes the National Enquirer reportedly shared with disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein incriminating statements about actress Rose McGowan, who has accused Weinstein of rape, in another stunning development of a scandal that has rocked the entertainment industry.
A series of emails in December 2016 revealed that Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media Inc., the publisher of the tabloid, shared information about McGowan from one of his reporters, according to a New Yorker report published Monday.
McGowan has been a vocal critic of Weinstein, whose career was brought to a halt after numerous people in the entertainment industry accused him of varying degrees of sexual misconduct over the years. McGowan was the fourth woman to formally accuse Weinstein of rape after the New Yorker's bombshell report was published last month.
A spokesperson for Weinstein said that he "unequivocally denied" McGowan's allegations.
Howard reportedly discussed a phone call one his reporters conducted with Elizabeth Avellan, the former wife of a director who reportedly had a relationship with McGowan.
According to the New Yorker's story, Avellan said that the reporter "kept calling and calling and calling," and suggested she felt pressured into talking with the reporter. During the call which Avellan said she believed was off the record, the reporter sought damning statements about McGowan.
Avellan told the publication that had she known the call was an attempt to discredit McGowan, she would not have agreed to the interview. Despite the agreement to remain off the record, the conversation between Avellan and the reporter was allegedly recorded, the New Yorker said. A recording of the conversation was reportedly given to Howard.
Howard continued to email Weinstein and mentioned he had "something AMAZING" that "laid into Rose pretty hard," the New Yorker reported.
"This is the killer," Weinstein wrote, according to the publication. "Especially if my fingerprints r not on this."
Although Howard denied sending recordings to Weinstein, the New Yorker magazine said that the emails Howard sent suggested otherwise.
"And the conversation . . . is RECORDED," one of Howard's emails to Weinstein said. "Audio file to follow."
Howard suggested in the report that he did not violate professional guidelines during his correspondence with Weinstein or during the investigation.
"I had an obligation to protect AMI's interests by seeking out - but not publishing - truthful information about people who Mr. Weinstein insisted were making false claims against him," a statement from Howard reportedly said.
"To the extent I provided 'off the record' information to Mr. Weinstein about one of his accusers - at a time when Mr. Weinstein was denying any harassment of any woman - it was information which I would never have allowed AMI to publish on the internet or in its magazines," Howard's statement continued.
A statement from Weinstein's spokesperson also added that Howard was pursuing a news tip from Weinstein that "might make a good story," only to eventually decline to publish the story.