Having been scooped by the New York Times, Ronan Farrow is now about to drop an exclusive on Harvey Weinstein in The New Yorker. The media world is standing by.
Ronan had a failed daytime show on MSNBC last year. When that ended he was sent over to NBC’s Today show. I’m told he pitched the Weinstein story to NBC and they rejected it. So he went to The New Yorker and they bit despite the fact he has just about no magazine credits at all. But when he went to MSNBC he had no broadcasting credits either. Hmmm…
Every part of this is strange and points to conflicts of interest. Strange: Ronan’s biological dad is New Yorker favorite Woody Allen, whom Ronan hates and tries to destroy at every turn. Is The New Yorker trying to tell Woody something? Seems like a betrayal, no?
Then there’s the conflict of interest: That father whom Ronan hates. Harvey Weinstein has had a lot of success with Woody Allen films over the years. He released “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Mighty Aphrodite” at Miramax. They were each big hits. Dianne Wiest won on Oscar for the former film. Mira Sorvino won for the latter. Harvey also released “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” at the Weinstein Company. Penelope Cruz won an Oscar for that one.
Weinstein has also released “Everyone Says I Love You,” which has become a kind of template for modern movie and TV musicals (See “La La Land”) and “Celebrity.”
So what’s in it for Ronan Farrow re Harvey Weinstein? It’s pretty obvious. He’s a good target by association. Now that Amazon has become Woody’s studio, we’re not going to see Ronan attacking Jeff Bezos. But Weinstein looks like a good punching bag until Farrow can figure out his next move.
PS Ronan is going to cast himself as defender of women against the casting couch. I suppose it’s lucky his real father wasn’t Frank Sinatra after all!
