When Courtney Love was asked, in 2005, "Do you have any advice for a young girl moving to Hollywood?"

She said "I’ll get libeled if I say it. If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons, don’t go."



Via TMZ.

(By "I’ll get libeled if I say it," she meant "I'll get sued for libel if I say it," and really, "libel" is the wrong word. It should be "slander" or "defamation.")

ADDED: Also at TMZ:

Our Weinstein sources say he knows he's "momentarily toxic" but thinks with a little time, writers and actors will seek him out again because of his track record. He believes -- and probably rightly so -- that TWC exists because of him. He believes he can go back and produce movies, or he can just as easily do it somewhere else.

"Momentarily toxic." What a phrase! But O.J. Simpson has been seen chatting up women in a Las Vegas bar, so maybe cleansing toxins is a thing that happens in America.

ALSO: I wonder what calculations went through Ms. Love's head as paused. She began with a long "Umm" (an umm that I hear as knowing and sarcastic, not as slow-thinking or hesitant). She makes a show of looking over at a companion or adviser (which I see as performance). It's meant to focus the listener's attention, as is the next line: "I’ll get libeled if I say it." We're really ready to hear it now. Then, very quick, conveying the sense of urgency, danger, and being let in on a secret, she says: "If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons, don’t go."

Now, what if Love had been sued for libel? First, why would Weinstein sue? He'd be opening the door to discovery about his modus operandi, which had been going on for over a decade at that point. The shit would have hit the fan 12 years before it did. And he would have lost the case for sure. Courtney's line doesn't state a fact about him. She's just advising actresses on what to do IF there's an invitation, and she doesn't say why the actress should not go. Plus, Harvey Weinstein was a public figure and would have had a high burden of proof.

So I wish Weinstein had sued Love because — and maybe at the time Love realized this at the time — the lawsuit would have advanced an important cause. Love has $100+ million and could afford great lawyers. And she'd have been a big feminist hero.

IN THE COMMENTS:Virgil Hilts said:

As a lawyer who dislikes almost all lawyers (the profession where the 98% who are bad apples make the other 2% look bad) I'm upset more lawyers are not being crucified in connection with this. If Weinstein enterprise was like a mafia whose goal was not so much to make $ as to allow HW to assault hundreds of women with impunity, then the attorneys here were the hit men. Its one thing to defend a client who screws up once or twice (say, like OJ!). It's another thing to become the legal oppression grease that makes a young-woman rape machine continue to run like a well-oiled machine over 20-30 years. Any attorneys who helped HW more than twice were complicit IMHO and shouldn't be getting a pass. But they have.