Power Lawyer Lisa Bloom Says She Made a 'Colossal Mistake' in Representing Harvey Weinstein
Lisa Bloom doesn’t look back fondly on her time working with Harvey Weinstein.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News published on Saturday, the famed attorney said it was “a colossal mistake” to work with the movie mogul.
“I can see that my just being associated with this was a mistake,” Bloom, 56, said. “All I can say is, from my perspective, I thought, ‘Here is my chance to get to the root of the problem from the inside. I am usually on the outside throwing stones. Here is my chance to be in the inside and to get a guy to handle this thing in a different way.’ ”
“I thought that would be a positive thing,” she continued. “But clearly it did not go over at all.”
Just a few days after The New York Times published a revealing exposé in which eight women, including actress Ashley Judd, spoke out against Weinstein, accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior,Bloom resigned as his advisor.
“I have resigned as an advisor to Harvey Weinstein,” Bloom wrote on Twitter. “My understanding is that Mr. Weinstein and his board are moving toward an agreement.”
Bloom explained this decision to BuzzFeed saying that what she first agreed to advise Weinstein, she had no idea about his alleged sexual misconduct — she just thought he needed help reining in his anger at work. (She had been hired before the Times article was published.) But as the allegations started piling up she says she was “absolutely shocked.”
“I am not an actress … this may be something that they knew about, but I did not,” Bloom continued. “Before all this became public, there were plenty of people who thought he was a great guy. So we have to be careful about looking at things in hindsight. I think many people who worked with him did not know.”
“I will just make the best choices I can out of every situation,” she added. “I have clearly not been successful. I think anybody who does big bold things fails. And I definitely failed on this one.”
Bloom — who made a name for herself as a women’s rights advocate while representing celebrities such as Mischa Barton, Blac Chyna, Kathy Griffin, and many of the female clients who claimed to be sexually harassed by former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly — had been highly criticized for her decision to stand by Weinstein.
At the time she resigned, Bloom tweeted, “As a women’s rights advocate, I have been blunt with Harvey and he has listened to me. I have told him the times have changed, it is 2017, and he needs to evolve to a higher standard. I have found Harvey to be refreshingly candid and receptive to my message. He has acknowledged the mistakes he has made. … He is an old dinosaur and learning new ways.”
“Harvey is not going to demean or attack any of the women making accusations against him, although he does dispute many of the allegations. Instead, he is going to use this as a painful learning experience to grow into a better man,” she continued. “I will make recommendations to ensure that gender equality and zero tolerance for workplace misconduct aren’t just goals, but a reality.”
But the criticism for Bloom wasn’t just coming from media outlets and Twitter users — it was coming from her mother, power lawyer Gloria Allred.
“Lisa is my daughter and I love and respect her. She has her own law firm separate from mine. She makes her own independent decisions on who she will or will not represent, and I have no role in her decisions,” Allred said to TIME. “Had I been asked by Mr. Weinstein to represent him, I would have declined, because I do not represent individuals accused of sex harassment. I only represent those who allege that they are victims of sexual harassment.”
“While I would not represent Mr. Weinstein, I would consider representing anyone who accused Mr. Weinstein of sexual harassment, even if it meant that my daughter was the opposing counsel,” Allred added.
Bloom responded to her mother’s remarks by telling Variety, “I have a different kind of law practice. My mother does only plaintiff side discrimination and harassment work. I have a successful, 12-lawyer general practice law firm that includes business litigation, defamation, revenge porn cases, entertainment matters, family law, and much more. … I believe that we can do good by suing, but also working behind the scenes to encourage accused people to respond with dignity and respect.”
“I would never take a case where either my lawyer mother or my lawyer daughter is opposing counsel,” Bloom continued. “That’s another area where we differ. I believe in family before business.”
Although Bloom told BuzzFeed “there is definitely a rift with my mother now,” on Friday, Allred shared a Facebook message which suggested their relationship wasn’t as strained as it might have seemed. “I would like to say that my daughter Lisa Bloom is and and always has been a champion for women’s rights,” Allred said, adding that,“Nothing that has happened in the recent past has altered my views of Lisa’s commitment to protecting and advancing women’s rights.”
Meanwhile Bob Weinstein — Harvey’s brother and business partner — told The Hollywood Reporteron Saturday that Harvey is “sick and depraved” and that he hopes he gets “the justice that he deserves”
“This hurts, but I don’t feel an ounce of remorse coming from him, and that kills me too,” Bob said. “When I heard his written, lame excuse… Not an excuse. When I heard his admission of feeling remorse for the victims and then him cavalierly, almost crazily saying he was going to go out and take on the NRA, it was so disturbing to me. It was utter insanity. My daughters all felt sick hearing this because we understood he felt nothing. I don’t feel he feels anything to this day. I don’t.”
Bob has also maintained that even though they were brothers, he had no idea what was going on. “For the last five years, I’ve probably talked to my brother ten times on any personal level,” he said, adding that, “ I actually was quite aware that Harvey was philandering with every woman he could meet. I was sick and disgusted by his actions. But that’s the extent of what [I knew]… I thought they were all consensual situations.”
“I’ll tell you what I did know,” he continued. “Harvey was a bully, Harvey was arrogant, he treated people like s—t all the time. That I knew. And I had to clean up for so many of his employee messes. People that came in crying to my office: ‘Your brother said this, that and the other.’ And I’d feel sick about it.”
Weinstein has since been fired from his former studio, The Weinstein Company, and wife Georgina Chapman announced she’s leaving him.
Following the NYT report about the allegations, Weinstein said in a statement that he was working with therapists and planned to “deal with this issue head-on.”
On Tuesday, The New Yorker revealed — among 13 different women’s accounts of alleged sexual harassment, assault or rape — that the mogul allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on Italian actress Asia Argento two decades ago. Actresses Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette also claimed that after rejecting Weinstein’s unwanted advances, they were removed from or kept from being hired for projects.
On Tuesday, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and several other women added their own accounts of alleged mistreatment, and more than two dozen women have now come forward.
“Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” a spokesperson for the movie mogul has said.
On Thursday, PEOPLE reported that Weinstein checked into a luxury resort in Arizona after jetting out of Los Angeles on Wednesday. The source said the movie mogul was staying at the five-star hotel (which boasts a spa and golf course) because “he doesn’t want to go a place where he can’t use his cell phone.”
“His team set him up at a secure place to get him the help he needs — he knows and wants help,” said another source close to the situation.