A lot of liberal Hollywood celebrity men condemned Harvey Weinstein (only after the majority of the allegations came forward)– Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Mark Ruffalo, and others. Even worse is Matt Damon, who is alleged to have helped kill the New York Times story about the Weinstein offenses in 2004. He claims that’s not true, and has come forward to lend his voice to the chorus of anti-Weinstein sentiment now.
Also telling is the list of celeb males who haven’t commented, even though they’ve worked with Weinstein — Michael Moore, Quentin Tarantino, Daniel Day-Lewis, Bradley Cooper, Martin Scorsese….
But actress Rose McGowan exposed some of those commenting as hypocrites, saying that Ben Affleck told her in private that he knew about the Weinstein assaults. She tweeted, “‘GODDAMNIT! I TOLD HIM TO STOP DOING THAT’ you said that to my face. […] The press conf I was made to go to after assault. You lie.” Brad Pitt also allegedly threatened to beat up Weinstein after he sexually harassed his then-girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow; but he didn’t actually raise the issue with authorities or warn other actresses.
But it goes beyond that.
As it turns out, some of the strongest anti-Weinstein voices have actually acted inappropriately themselves:
Jimmy Kimmel:
On his late-night show, Kimmel asked, “What’s the difference between Harvey Weinstein and the Pillsbury Doughboy? When the Pillsbury Doughboy offers you a roll, he doesn’t ask you to watch him take a shower for it.” He also insisted on making a comparison between Weinstein and President Trump.
But, earlier in his career, Kimmel asked women to grope him, on camera, to guess what he’d hidden in his pants. At one point in the gag (pun intended), he mused, “Maybe it would be easier if you put your mouth on it.” And he joked that he’d need to make sure that all participants were over the age of eighteen…
More gems from #Kimmel.
Here he has women feel his crotch to guess what he stuffed in his pants.
KIMMEL: “You should put your mouth on it” pic.twitter.com/Yv0MVN9vPw— Austen Fletcher (@fleccas) October 11, 2017
Ben Affleck:
Here’s what the actor tweeted:
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) October 10, 2017
But, in addition to being called out by McGowan, he’s had to do some explaining for this incident. On a 2003 episode of TRL, Affleck seems to have purposefully groped actress Hilarie Burton.
https://youtu.be/p2BZ7E2dQWQ
He did apologize for that one:
I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) October 11, 2017
But what about this other incident?
When promoting his film Jersey Girl, he got very weird with Anne-Marie Losique, an interviewer from Montreal, Canada, saying “they would like it better if you did the show topless. […] I’m getting those titties out.”
He also joked about how firm her breasts were, how many lovers he’d had, and how badly he wanted to have sex with her. At one point, while he held her on his lap, he yelled at her to stop moving away from him. (Losique defends Affleck here.)
Matt Damon:
Damon insists that he wouldn’t have tried to kill the 2004 Harvey Weinstein New York Times article, saying, “For the record, I would never, ever, ever try to kill a story like that. I just wouldn’t do that. It’s not something I would do, for anybody.”
And here’s what he said about the sexual assaults in general, “I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this. I think a lot of actors have come out and said, everybody’s saying we all knew. That’s not true. […] This type of predation happens behind closed doors, and out of public view. If there was ever an event that I was at and Harvey was doing this kind of thing and I didn’t see it, then I am so deeply sorry, because I would have stopped it.”
This however is the same Matt Damon who produced Manchester by the Sea, and helped cast Casey Affleck in the lead role. Casey Affleck has been accused of at least two acts of sexual assault himself. So would Matt Damon actually have stopped it from happening?
Also, Damon got into some hot water over his comments about keeping the behind the scenes roles in Hollywood from becoming too diverse:
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