Victims speak up about sexual abuse after Harvey Weinstein scandal

Film distribution company The Orchard has decided to cancel the release of Louis CK’s new movie I Love You, Daddy following multiple allegations of CK’s sexual misconduct. Following CK’s admission Friday morning, in which he confirmed that the allegations are true, television network FX said it had decided to end its relationship with the comedian.

News about the film’s cancellation came from Deadline. The Orchard also canceled the New York City premiere of the film yesterday, in advance of a lengthy New York Times report about the accusations against CK. The movie was originally set to open in limited release on November 17th.

For years, rumors of sexual harassment have swirled around comedian Louis CK. Now, five women have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, as reported at The New York Times. Their accounts are remarkably similar, involving incidents where the Louie star either asked if he could masturbate in front of them, or simply did so without their consent.

Although his agent said he would decline to comment, Louis CK previously brushed off rumors of sexual misconduct, telling Vulture in 2016, “I don’t care about that. That’s nothing to me. That’s not real.” According to the five women who have come forward at the Times, however, it was very real — and they’ve finally found a way to make him care about it.

The fallout from sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey has continued, with the actor now being replaced by Christopher Plummer in Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World, reports Deadline. The film is still due to be released on December 22nd which means Scott will be working on an extremely tight schedule for reshoots.

Plummer is replacing Spacey as billionaire J. Paul Getty in the thriller, which is about the abduction of Getty's 16-year-old grandson in 1973. Spacey worked around ten days on the film, shooting scenes that mostly feature just his character. The film also stars Mark Wahlberg as Getty's lawyer and Michelle Williams as Getty's daughter-in-law. Both are expected to have to reshoot material as well. The reshoot means Sony will also have to alter marketing content — a trailer was released in September that features Spacey prominently.

Earlier this week Netflix shut down production on House of Cards in the wake of actor Anthony Rapp’s sexual abuse allegations against Kevin Spacey. Today, the streaming service announced it is going a step further, and will no longer work with the actor in any capacity whatsoever.

“Netflix will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the show. We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film  Gore, which was in post-production, starring and produced by Kevin Spacey."

When filmmaker Robert Rodriguez cast actress Rose McGowan in the B-movie exploitation flick Grindhouse, it was more than finding the right actor for the right role: it was a defiant middle finger to disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In a statement to Variety, Rodriguez explains that he met the actress at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where she told him that she had been raped by Weinstein eight years prior. In the aftermath of the assault, the actress found herself blacklisted from appearing in any films connected to Weinstein or his influential studio.

Deadline is reporting that Amazon Studios executive Roy Price has resigned, in response to sexual harassment claims leveled online by The Man in the High Castle executive producer Isa Hackett. Contacted by The Verge, an Amazon representative confirmed his resignation. Price was also a producer on Man in the High Castle and other Amazon shows, including Transparent.

Price was suspended from Amazon on October 13th. It’s the latest step in what’s become a groundswell of revelations about sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood following high-profile exposés about film executive Harvey Weinstein. After both The New York Times and The New Yorker published lengthy pieces detailing Weinstein’s alleged behavior — a long history of inviting actresses to nonexistent script meetings or industry parties to get them alone, then demanding massages, offering sex-for-work details, or simply presenting himself naked — there’s been a running backlash against aggressive, unwanted sexual behavior in professional settings. Hackett initially filed a complaint against Price in 2015, when the harassment occurred, but Amazon took no action against him at the time. The company’s quick response this month has clearly been in response to the growing public outrage against Weinstein, though the controversy it faced over harassment claims against Casey Affleck, star of Amazon Studios’ Oscar-winning legitimacy-bid Manchester By The Sea, may also have played a part.

Women across Twitter and other social media platforms are sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment using the hashtag #MeToo, after actress Alyssa Milano suggested the idea in a post on Twitter last night. The outpouring of stories comes in the wake of several high-profile investigative reports from The New York Times and The New Yorker into decades of sexual assault and harassment from Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Many women quickly responded to Milano’s tweet, which said: “If all women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

Some responded to her tweet with just “Me too,” including True Blood actress Anna Paquin. Others detailed their own experiences. One person wrote, “The first time I was sexually assaulted, I was 13 years old. The last time it happened was 1 month ago, at work. I’m 52 yrs old. #Metoo.”

Following a pair of reports detailing decades of sexual harassment and abuse by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, Amazon Studios has cut ties with the his studio and has canceled a high-profile television drama from David O. Russell, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The studio ordered two seasons of the Silver Linings Playbook director’s untitled project, which was set to star Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore, and Michael Shannon. Russell, De Niro, and Moore released a statement yesterday saying that they supported Amazon’s decision to cancel the show. The move comes with a high cost: the project was reportedly budgeted at $160 million for both seasons. Weinstein was an executive producer on the project, which was reportedly a mafia crime series set in the 1990s. The studio is moving forward with a Weinstein co-production from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, The Romanoffs, but without the support of the beleaguered company.

Yesterday, some Twitter users began a 24 hour boycott of the social media platform after the company suspended actress Rose McGowan’s account. Twitter has taken notice, and last night, CEO Jack Dorsey pledged that it will take a “more aggressive stance” in enforcing its rules, and that it will begin rolling out new rules in the coming weeks to try and curb some of the unwanted behavior that appears on the platform.

Twitter temporarily suspended McGowan’s account earlier this week after she posted a private phone number in a Tweet. McGowan has become a vocal detractor of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who was the subject of a pair of reports that alleged decades of sexual abuse. While McGowan’s account was eventually restored, the incident highlights problems in how Twitter addresses abuse on its platform.

Sexual assault allegations — apparently from multiple individuals — have been made against a prominent security researcher, prompting his resignation from several public interest organizations he was affiliated with. Morgan Marquis-Boire was an employee of First Look Media until this past September. He was also a technical advisor to organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

As part of his public interest work for Citizen Lab, Marquis-Boire researched commercial surveillance software used against domestic violence victims by their abusers. (Earlier this year, he publicly thanked the author of this article for inspiring his work by writing about digital surveillance and domestic violence).

Amazon has suspended its studio head, Roy Price, in the wake of harassment allegations from The Man in High Castle executive producer Isa Hackett. "Roy Price is on leave of absence effective immediately,” a spokesperson tells The Verge.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hackett recounted Price’s gross and repeated misconduct. In addition to crudely propositioning Hackett several times, telling her, “You will love my dick,” Hackett says he also approached her at a party and loudly said “Anal sex!” into her ear.

Last night, some Twitter users began calling for a 24-hour boycott of the platform to show support for victims of sexual assault. The hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter is trending right now, as the boycott is underway. But with its supporters offline, the hashtag is mostly being used by users who disagree with the boycott as an effective solidarity tactic.

The boycott is a response to Twitter’s recent suspension of actress Rose McGowan, following a New York Times report earlier this week that detailed decades of sexual assault and harassment by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. McGowan was particularly vocal on Twitter, condemning Weinstein and calling out actors like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for protecting him. Yesterday, McGowan’s Twitter account was temporarily blocked for “violating the Twitter Rules.”

Actress Rose McGowan has been temporarily blocked from Twitter after denouncing the film producer Harvey Weinstein and his collaborators. Reports by The New York Times and the New Yorker published over the last week allege that Weinstein raped three women and sexually assaulted and harassed numerous others, using his influence in the industry to threaten and silence his victims. The Times reported that McGowan herself reached a settlement with Weinstein over undisclosed claims in 1997.

Following the publication of these charges, McGowan has emerged as one of the most vocal denouncers of Weinstein. She has also called out numerous Hollywood figures that allegedly knew of his crimes and said nothing. She tweeted at Matt Damon asking, “what’s it like to be a spineless profiteer who stays silent?” and, on October 10th, more simply: “Ben Affleck fuck off.” She has also called for the board of the Weinstein Company to be dissolved following the allegations.