We’ve kept a running tally of the worst takes on the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault and harassment revelations, one that is probably going to need another update soon enough. Oliver Stone’s defense of the ousted movie exec, who could end up being the subject of criminal investigations, might have made that list, as it was so damn wrongheaded, not to mention dismissive of the survivors. But Stone has his own sexist skeletons in the closet, as we learned during the course of a Random Roles interview with Jared Harris a few years ago, and via a recent disclosure from Carrie Stevens, a former Playboy Playmate who accused the Natural Born Killers director of sexually assaulting her at a party.
Now Stone, who told reporters at the Busan International Film Festival that things are “not easy” for the man who demanded massages from some women and masturbated in front of others, is clarifying just what he meant by those remarks. In a Facebook post, the director claims that when he said he’d “wait for the trial” of Weinstein before judging a person who insisted on conducting business meetings in a robe (or in the bathtub), he hadn’t read any of the dozens of stories about the studio founder’s long history of abuse. Stone also recused himself from the Weinstein Company’s Guantanamo series, which Showtime picked up earlier this year.
Next time, maybe Stone should do a quick Google search before responding to questions about one of the biggest stories in the country right now. But given that he dismissed the original New York Times story—an in-depth and harrowing read, filled with allegations from several women—as gossip before dozens more women stepped forward, the director doesn’t seem all that interested in staying informed on the subject.