Here’s a question for you: Could the “monster” of the #MeToo movement get a fair trial anywhere in these United States?  Is there a potential jury member that has not made up his mind that Harvey Weinstein raped, mistreated, and oppressed women?  Since last October to be exact, every news organization in America has been busy piling it on, reporting each and every accusation no matter how wild—or untruthful, for that matter—while old Harvey Weinstein has been cooling his heels with only his lawyer daring to respond.  Late in July, I got an inkling of what the “monster” is up against.  And our own Freddy Gray had a lot to do with it.  Let’s take it from the top.

As already reported in these pages, I used to see Harvey Weinstein on social occasions, in Switzerland and at various parties in New York.  Michael Mailer, son of Norman and a successful film producer, and I went down to Harvey’s office and proposed a movie of my prison book Nothing to Declare.  Weinstein countered with a proposal of a documentary about my past love life.  Michael and I demurred.  We parted as friends.

After the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan, Harvey went into hiding and rehab, so you can imagine my surprise when the telephone rang last June and I heard him on the line.  We met in his midtown office, and his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, was present.  We talked mostly about Hollywood and about the press and how he had been hung out to dry.  He pointed out certain whoppers told by a couple of his accusers, not necessarily connected to his case.  I took down some notes.  Where I made a mistake was in not clearing things up when he told me, “You were born rich, good looking, and privileged; I was born poor, Jewish, and ugly.  You had no trouble finding girls; I only got some once I made it big in Hollywood and its give-and-take culture.”

In retrospect, after the mess that ensued, I wish I had cleared that matter up with him.  Did the give-and-take mean parts in movies for sex—the way I understood it—or was it that the film industry works only by deals being struck among producers, the way he claims he put it?  While in London for The Spectator’s annual summer party, I happened to mention the fact to that magazine’s deputy editor, Freddy Gray.  He jumped at it, asking me to write it for the Spectator’s American website making its debut that week.  The headline stated that Harvey Weinstein confessed to offering acting jobs in exchange for sex.  The ensuing press frenzy was not as big as the one following the attack on Pearl Harbor, but almost, as they say in Tinseltown.

Then came Harvey on the phone—I was in Switzerland by then—but I cannot give you an accurate report of what he sounded like because I do not possess the writing talent to do it justice.  The closest I can get is to evoke Zero Mostel’s character in The Producers, when Zero was cajoling, threatening, begging, and crying while trying to get old ladies to hand over the check.  “I never said it, how can you invent such a thing, I thought you were my friend, there are a thousand reporters downstairs, you have ruined me, I’m finished, why, Taki, why?”  Harvey has that American, or perhaps New York Jewish, habit of repeating the last word one has said, as when I said to him I meant no harm, “NO HARM, NO HARM—to have knifed me in the gut would have been better.”

As a rude man once said about the death of Little Nell, it would take a heart of stone not to burst out laughing, but I was seriously saddened.  Neither The Spectator nor I kick people who are down; we leave that to the New York Times and other such propaganda venues.  So I wrote a retraction, something I had never done in 41 years at The Spectator and 50 years as a journalist.  My editor Fraser Nelson and Freddy Gray stuck by me and believed me when I said I was retracting something I had written in very good faith.  For 48 hours the media were all over me, but I refused all Circe-like calls.  Especially from the Times, which was very curious as to what I meant by retracting.  (What did they think I meant—duh!)

Which brings me back to whether Harvey can have a fair trial anywhere in America.  The sisterhood is powerful, out for blood, and the press and media are “with her.”  Harvey will be crucified following every day of the trial, and then some.  I will not be called as a character witness, because they know I would tell the truth—that he’s always acted impeccably toward women in my presence.

In order for fairness to prevail, the trial should be moved to deepest Africa, preferably among the Maasai people.