Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein (ˈwaɪnstiːn; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer. He and his brother Bob Weinstein co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films, including Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), The Crying Game (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Flirting with Disaster (1996), and Shakespeare in Love (1998). Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love, and garnered seven Tony Awards for a variety of plays and musicals, including The Producers, Billy Elliot the Musical, and August: Osage County. After leaving Miramax, Weinstein and his brother Bob founded The Weinstein Company, a mini-major film studio. He was co-chairman, alongside Bob, from 2005 to 2017. In October 2017, following sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein, he was dismissed from his company and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. By October 31, over 80 women had made allegations against Weinstein. The allegations sparked the #MeToo social media campaign and many similar sexual abuse allegations against and dismissals of powerful men around the world, now called the "Weinstein effect". On May 25, 2018, Weinstein was arrested in New York, charged with rape and other offenses, and released on bail.