Oliver Stone is a complicated man.
First, this happened:
Stone addressed the international media Friday morning at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, where he is serving as chair of the event’s competition jury. It wasn’t long before he was asked for his reaction to the Weinstein allegations, along with whether he was aware of the many rumors about Weinstein’s behavior over the years.
“I’m a believer that you wait until this thing gets to trial,” Stone said. “I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system. It’s not easy what he’s going through, either. During that period he was a rival. I never did business with him and didn’t really know him. I’ve heard horror stories on everyone in the business, so I’m not going to comment on gossip. I’ll wait and see, which is the right thing to do.”
And then, this:
The Oscar-winning director says he no longer will direct his fictional television debut Guantanamoas long as The Weinstein Company remains involved.
The decision marks something of a turnabout from comments Stone made earlier in the day at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korean, where he is serving as chair of the event’s competition jury. During a morning press conference, Stone answered a reporter’s question about the Weinstein allegations by suggesting that he was reserving judgment of the disgraced mogul, saying, “It’s not easy what he’s going through, either.”
Hours later, Stone walked back those statements, writing in a message shared over Facebook that he was not aware of the extent of the allegations against Weinstein because he had been traveling. Stone now says he’s “appalled” and “commend[s] the courage of the women who’ve stepped forward.”
Here’s the Facebook message:
And now, there’s this:
Oliver Stone accused of groping TV actress in the early 1990s https://t.co/r5v6DqeXU9 pic.twitter.com/Ef363Yzb7W
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 13, 2017
"When I heard about Harvey I recalled Oliver..grabbing my boob as he walked out the door of a party. Two of a kind!" https://t.co/sQ4tgpLsig
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 13, 2017
Well, gee. Maybe Stone initially said “it’s not easy what [Weinstein’s] going through” because he can empathize with him:
On Thursday, model and actress Carrie Stevens (Days of Our Lives, Beverly Hills, 90210), responding to a Hollywood Reporter story about Oliver Stone’s brief expression of sympathy for Weinstein, tweeted: “When I heard about Harvey, I recalled Oliver walking past me & grabbing my boob as he walked out the front door of a party. Two of a kind!”
“It was at Ted Field’s home years ago, around the time Oliver did JFK. The party was in his honor. Oliver was on his way out; Ted was seeing him to the door. Oliver spied me standing nearby and just reached out and instead of doing what a normal person does and shaking my hand, he just groped my boob and honked it like a horn and grinned and kept walking.
I was humiliated but didn’t want to complain. I didn’t want Ted to think I was ungrateful for the invitation, and I was new on the scene and just navigating my way around Hollywood. I came from the rock’n’ roll scene. Eric Carr from Kiss was my boyfriend and he had just passed away. I met Ted because he produced Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Kiss did the soundtrack, so I met him at the premiere. Ted is a nice guy and he knew I was having a hard time over Eric’s passing so he invited me to his party — last thing I wanted to do was be a trouble maker.
And Oliver Stone’s always been such a stand-up guy!
https://twitter.com/justkarl/status/918851860164997121
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