Candace Owens’ Latest Crusade: Exonerating Harvey Weinstein – Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterThe far-right and vociferous anti-#MeToo commentator who left Ben Shapiro’s media outfit amid antisemitism allegations said she has been talking to the imprisoned producer for years: “It will explode the world.”
By
Gary Baum
Senior Writer
Candace Owens, the far-right commentator who in recent months has supersized her online following by zealously defending Justin Baldoni in his It Ends With Us legal battle with Blake Lively, revealed in a Feb. 27 livestream that her next project will be attempting to exonerate Harvey Weinstein in the court of public opinion ahead of his April 15 retrial in New York on rape charges.
She explained she’s been talking with the imprisoned producer by telephone since early 2022, recording interviews since his second conviction in Los Angeles, also for rape and other sexual misconduct. Her takeaway: While he’s “an immoral man,” he’s also a victim of the justice system. Owens, a longtime and persistent critic of the #MeToo movement, of which the Weinstein saga served as the watershed, noted that “I’ve always had faith in our court system and now that’s beginning to change. Now I’m beginning to wonder if our courtrooms have been politicized.”
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In 2024, the New York state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s conviction from four years earlier, citing improper rulings by the trial judge that had prejudiced him as a defendant. The appeals court noted in its ruling that women had been allowed to testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Owens, who in the same livestream derided Endeavor head Ari Emanuel’s support for Blake Lively in the Baldoni matter and continued to highlight revelations pertaining to late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has a history of what the Anti-Defamation League has called “vicious antisemitism,” which led to her departure from Ben Shapiro’s conservative media outfit The Daily Wire last year. On her livestream, she explained that during their introductory call, Weinstein asked her about her support of antisemite Kanye West and noted he’d been a financial supporter of the ADL. “I suddenly felt like I was trying out for the cheerleading team,” recalled Owens, who last year promoted her belief that Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, was born a man.
Weinstein’s spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement: “Since 2017, when the allegations against Mr. Weinstein first emerged, nearly every mainstream and alternative media outlet has seized opportunities to amplify grievances against him. Whenever potentially exculpatory information arose, it was often ignored. However, when new allegations surfaced, they were met with sensationalized headlines.”
Engelmayer added, “Ms. Owens’ intent is to contribute to the ongoing discourse by presenting some of that additional information that, to date, media have not felt need enough to share with the public. Mr. Weinstein hopes for a truly objective examination of his cases — one that fairly considers his accusers, the prevailing narratives, and crucial facts that have frequently been overlooked in the rush to report since this ordeal began.”
Owens’ own communications representative has circulated a memo underscoring that the series Harvey Speaks, set to debut later this week, will also critique the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism about Weinstein’s misconduct published by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, as well as delve into “how businessmen used #MeToo to try to steal Harvey’s and other men’s businesses.” Owens, who declined to speak with THR about the project, promised on her eponymous show that “it will explode the world.”
In statements to THR, attorneys for some of Weinstein’s more than 80 accusers downplayed the value of the Owens-Weinstein effort, emphasizing that the producer has repeatedly opted not to testify under oath in his defense. “I think that what really matters at this point is the evidence that will be admitted in his next criminal trial,” said Gloria Allred. “My guess is that the only evidence that may be ‘explosive’ would be his testimony if Mr. Weinstein decided to testify under oath and subjected himself to cross examination by the prosecution. Given that he has not taken the witness stand in his last two criminal trials in New York and California, I am doubtful that he will choose to testify this time.”
Lawyer Dave Ring represented the Los Angeles trial’s Jane Doe 1. (She went public in a THR profile following his rape conviction as Evgeniya Chernyshova.) He agrees with Allred: “Mr. Weinstein chose to not take the witness stand on his own behalf,” he said, adding: “This [collaboration] is yet another ploy by Mr. Weinstein’s public relations machine to try and change public opinion about him and his sordid past.”
Louise Godbold, who has accused Weinstein of misconduct and is now the executive director of Echo, a nonprofit that provides trauma education, says of the Owens project, “I would ask people to please ignore it. I don’t want to listen to it. I don’t want to react to it. Candace Owens is not my source of information of choice. When these perpetrators clamor for attention via these more obscure media outlets, it’s providing very effective PR. They know it will get picked up by more mainstream outlets, which can then publish without needing to do the fact-checking they would for an original piece. We know what the perpetrators are up to. If we can’t ignore it, let’s expose the strategy. Let’s be intelligent. This is an age-old tactic, and in this age of disinformation we’ve got to get smarter and not get duped into clanging our bells on demand.”
Rebecca Keegan contributed to this reporting.Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.
