There have been books written—and likely more to come—about all the ways Hollywood, and especially Hollywood men, Did Not Talk about Harvey Weinstein. Which is to say they talked, of course, across literal decades of abuse. But not anywhere that was especially useful to the women trapped in Weinstein’s orbit, whether it was Quentin Tarantino “knowing enough” to wish he’d said more, or Matt Damon seemingly embracing willful ignorance when he heard someone was writing a “hit piece” about his benefactor and friend. These individual cases can be fascinating as much for what they didn’t accomplish as what they did, though; take, for instance, Brad Pitt, who was asked this week about threatening to kill Weinstein if he ever touched Gwyneth Paltrow again.
Paltrow originally told this story on The Howard Stern Show last year, following up on details she’d revealed the year prior to The New York Times. In the Times story, she’d recounted the ways Weinstein attempted to leverage control over her career, circa Emma, into his tried, tested, and thoroughly vile method of inviting young actresses to engage in sexual behavior with him. After the encounter, which included Weinstein touching her inappropriately and inviting her to his bedroom, she told her then-boyfriend Pitt about it. Per Paltrow, he approached Weinstein outside a play premiere in 1995, and told him, “If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I’ll kill you.” Describing the incident, Paltrow highlighted how much she appreciated the gesture, saying, “It was the equivalent of throwing him against the wall, energetically. It was so fantastic because what he did was, he leveraged his fame and power to protect me at a time when I didn’t have fame or power yet. He’s the best.”