Harvey Weinstein is back in court – but what has happened to the #MeToo movement since 2017?
Seven years after allegations against him first emerged online, Harvey Weinstein is back in court.
When the accusations surfaced in late 2017, the American actress Alyssa Milano tweeted: “If all the 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.”
This gave birth to what we now know as the #MeToo movement and a flood of women – famous and not – sharing stories of gender-based violence and harassment.
Weinstein, 73, was jailed in 2020 and has been held at New York’s notorious Rikers Island prison complex ever since.
On 15 April, jury selection for his retrial got off to a false start, with none of the 12 potential candidates or six alternatives being deemed suitable. One, an actor, described Weinstein as a “really bad guy” and claimed he could not remain impartial. A woman also bowed out after declaring she had been the victim of sexual assault.
Once jurors are selected, the original charges of rape and sexual assault will be heard again, with opening statements and evidence due to start on 21 April.
Here we look at why there’s a retrial, why Weinstein will likely remain behind bars – and what has happened to #MeToo.
Why is there a retrial?
Weinstein is back in court because his first two convictions were overturned last April and are now being retried.
In 2020, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting ex-production assistant Mimi Haley in 2006 and raping former actor Jessica Mann in 2013.
Miriam (Mimi) Haley arrives at court in New York in 2020. Pic: AP
Jessica Mann outside court in Manhattan in July 2024. Pic: AP
But in April 2024, New York’s highest court overturned both convictions due to concerns the judge had made improper rulings, including allowing a woman to testify who was not part of the case.
At a preliminary hearing in January this year, the former Hollywood mogul, who has cancer and heart issues, asked for an earlier date on account of his poor health, but that was denied.
Arriving at court for his original trial in New York in February 2020. Pic: Reuters
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When the retrial was decided upon last year, Judge Farber also ruled that a separate charge concerning a third woman should be added to the case.
In September 2024, the unnamed woman filed allegations that Weinstein forced oral sex on her at a hotel in Manhattan in 2006.
Defence lawyers tried to get the charge thrown out, claiming prosecutors were only trying to bolster their case, but Judge Farber decided to incorporate it into the current retrial.
Weinstein denies all the allegations against him and claims any sexual contact was consensual.
Speaking outside court on 15 April, his lawyer Arthur Aidala, said he was “cautiously optimistic that when all the evidence is out, the jury will find that all of his relationships were consensual and therefore reach a verdict of not guilty”.
Why won’t he be released?
Even if the retrial ends in not guilty verdicts on all three counts, Weinstein will remain behind bars at Rikers Island.
This is because he was sentenced for a second time in February 2023 after being convicted of raping an actor in a Los Angeles hotel room in 2013.
At a pre-trial hearing in Los Angeles in July 2021. Pic: Reuters
He was also found guilty of forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object in relation to the same woman, named only in court as Jane Doe 1.
The judge ruled that the 16-year sentence should be served after the 23-year one imposed in New York.
Weinstein’s lawyers are appealing this sentence – but for now, the 16 years behind bars still stand.
Has #MeToo made a difference – and what’s changed?
“MeToo was another way of women testifying about sexual violence and harassment,” Dr Jane Meyrick, associate professor in health psychology at the University of West England (UWE), tells Sky News.
“It exposed the frustration around reporting cases and showed the legal system was not built to give women justice – because they just gave up on it and started saying it online instead.
“That was hugely symbolic – because most societies are built around the silencing of sexual violence and harassment.”
Women on a #MeToo protest march in Los Angeles in November 2017. Pic: Reuters
After #MeToo went viral in 2017, the statute of limitation on sexual assault cases was extended in several US states, giving victims more time to come forward, and there has been some reform of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), which were regularly used by Weinstein.
This has resulted in more women speaking out and an increased awareness of gender-based violence, particularly among women, who are less inclined to tolerate any form of harassment, according to Professor Alison Phipps, a sociologist specialising in gender at Newcastle University.
“There’s been an increase in capacity to handle reports in some organisations and institutions – and we’ve seen a lot of high-profile men brought down,” she says.
“But the #MeToo movement has focused on individual men and individual cases – rather than the culture that allows the behaviour to continue.
“It’s been about naming and shaming and ‘getting rid’ of these bad men – by firing them from their jobs or creating new crimes to be able to send more of them to prison – not dealing with the problem at its root.”
Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted about #MeToo when the Weinstein accusations surfaced. Pic: AP
Dr Meyrick, who wrote the book #MeToo For Women And Men: Understanding Power Through Sexual Harassment, gives the example of the workplace and the stereotype of “bumping the perp”, or perpetrator.
“HR departments are still not designed to protect workers – they’re built to suppress and make things go away.” As a result, she says, men are often “quietly moved on” with “no real accountability”.
The same is true in schools, Prof Phipps adds, where she believes concerns around the popularity among young boys of self-proclaimed misogynist and influencer Andrew Tate are being dealt with too “punitively”.
“The message is ‘we don’t talk about Andrew Tate here’ and ‘you shouldn’t be engaging with him’,” she says. “But what we should be doing is asking boys and young men: ‘why do you like him?’, ‘what’s going on here?’ – that deeper conversation is missing,” she says.
The former film producer on the red carpet in Los Angeles in 2015. Pic: AP
Have high-profile celebrity cases helped?
Both experts agree they will have inevitably empowered some women to come forward.
But they stress they are often “nothing like” most other cases of sexual violence or harassment, which makes drawing comparisons “dangerous”.
Referencing the Weinstein case in the US and Gisele Pelicot‘s in France, Dr Meyrick says: “They took multiple people over a very long period of time to reach any conviction – a lot of people’s experiences are nothing like that.”
Prof Phipps adds: “They can create an idea that it’s only ‘real’ rape if it’s committed by a serial sex offender – and not every person who perpetrates sexual harm is a serial offender.”
A woman holds a ‘support Gisele Pelicot’ placard at a march in Paris during her husband’s rape case. Pic: AP
Gisele Pelicot outside court. Pic: Reuters
Part of her research has focused on “lad culture” in the UK and associated sexual violence at universities.
She says: “A lot of that kind of violence happens in social spaces, where there are drugs and alcohol and young people thrown together who don’t know where the boundaries are.
“That doesn’t absolve them of any responsibility – but comparing those ‘lads’ to Harvey Weinstein seems inappropriate.”
Dr Meyrick says most victims she has spoken to through her research “wouldn’t go down the legal route” – and prosecution and conviction rates are still extremely low.
“Most don’t try for justice. They just want to be believed and heard – that’s what’s important and restorative,” she says.
But specialist services that can support victims in that way are underfunded – and not enough is being done to change attitudes through sex education and employment policy, she warns.
“Until we liberate men from the masculine roles they’re offered by society – where objectification of women is normalised as banter – they will remain healthy sons of the patriarchy.
“We need transformative, compassionate education for young men – and young women. That’s where the gap still is.”
Hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has lost a bid to delay his upcoming sex-trafficking trial by two months.
US district judge Arun Subramanian said the 55-year-old rapper made his request too close to his trial, which is due to start next month.
Jury selection is currently scheduled for 5 May with opening statements set to be heard seven days later.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to five criminal counts including racketeering and sex trafficking.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan US attorney’s office accuse Combs of using his business empire to sexually abuse women between 2004 and 2024.
Combs’s lawyers say the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual.
In a court filing on Wednesday, Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo asked Mr Subramanian to delay the trial because he needed more time to prepare his defence to two new charges which were brought on 4 April.
The charges were of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Mr Agnifilo also said his team needs extra time to review emails it wants an alleged victim to turn over.
The new allegations brought the total number of criminal charges against the rap mogul to five – following the three original counts, which also included racketeering conspiracy, filed in September.
Federal prosecutors were opposed to any delay, writing in a Thursday court filing that the additional charges brought
earlier this month did not amount to substantially new conduct.
They also said Combs was not entitled to the alleged victim’s communications.
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Sean Combs trial
A sketch of Combs during one of his court appearances. Pic: Reuters
Meanwhile, Mr Subramanian is weighing other evidentiary issues, such as whether to allow alleged victims to testify under pseudonyms.
Also known during his career as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, Combs founded Bad Boy Records and is credited with helping turn rappers and R&B singers such as Notorious B.I.G, Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans and Usher into stars in the 1990s and 2000s.
But prosecutors have said his success concealed a dark side.
They say his alleged abuse included having women take part in recorded sexual performances called “freak-offs” with male sex workers, who were sometimes transported across state lines.
Combs has been in jail in Brooklyn since September, having been denied bail.
He also faces dozens of civil lawsuits by women and men who have accused him of sexual abuse.
Combs has strenuously denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
Entertainment
Warfare’s Alex Garland: ‘Being anti-war is not the same as saying it should never happen’
Alex Garland says while it’s “the most obvious statement about life on this planet” that the world would be a better place without war, it “doesn’t mean it should never happen”, and there are “circumstances in which war is required”.
The Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director told Sky News: “I don’t think it is possible to make a statement about what war is really like without it being implicitly anti-war, inasmuch as it would be better if this thing did not happen.
“But that’s not the same as saying it should never happen. There are circumstances in which war is required.”
(L-R) Co-writers and co-directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. Pic: A24
His latest film, Warfare, embeds the audience within a platoon of American Navy SEALs on an Iraqi surveillance mission gone wrong, telling the story solely through the memories of war veterans from a real 2006 mission in Ramadi, Iraq.
Garland says the film is “anti-war in as much as it is better if war does not happen,” adding, “and that is about the most obvious statement about life on this planet that one could make.”
Comparing it to ongoing geopolitical conflict across the world, Garland goes on: “It would be better if Gaza had not been flattened. It would be better if Ukraine was not invaded. It would it better if all people’s problems could be solved via dialogue and not threat or violence…
“To be anti-war to me is a rational position, and most veterans I’ve met are anti-war.”
The screenwriter behind hits including Ex Machina, 28 Days Later and The Beach says this film is “an attempt to recreate something as faithfully and accurately as we could”.
The film opens to Swedish dance hit Call On Me. Pic: A24
‘War veterans feel invisible and forgotten’
Almost entirely based on first-person accounts, the 15-rated film opens with soldiers singing along to the video of Swedish dance hit Call On Me – complete with gyrating women in thong leotards.
It’s the only music in the film. The remaining score is made up of explosions, sniper fire and screams of pain.
Garland co-wrote and co-directed the film alongside Hollywood stuntman and gunfight coordinator Ray Mendoza, whom Garland met on his last film, Civil War.
Mendoza, a communications officer on the fateful mission portrayed in the film, says despite the traumatic content, the experience of making the film was “therapeutic”.
Mendoza told Sky News: “It actually mended a lot of relationships… There were some guys I hadn’t spoken to in a very long time. And this allowed us to bury the hatchet, so to speak, on some issues from that day.”
Turning to Hollywood after serving in the Navy for 16 years, Mendoza says past war film he’d seen – even the good ones – were “a little off” because they “don’t get the culture right”.
Mendoza admits: “You feel like no one cares because they didn’t get it right. You feel invisible. You feel forgotten.”
With screenings of Warfare shown to around 1,000 veterans ahead of general release, Mendoza says: “They finally feel heard. They finally feel like somebody got it right.”
As to whether it could be triggering for some veterans, Mendoza says decisively not: “It’s not triggering. I would say it’s the opposite, for a veteran at least.”
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D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai plays communications officer Ray. Pic: A24
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A tense and raw 90-minute story told in real time, the film’s ensemble cast is made up of young buzzy actors, dubbed “all of the internet’s boyfriends” when the casting was first announced.
Mirroring the Navy SEALs they were portraying, the cast initially bonded through a three-week bootcamp ahead of filming, before living together for the 25-day shoot.
Black Mirror’s Will Poulter, who plays Eric, the officer in charge of the operation, says the film’s extended takes and 360-degree sets demanded a special kind of focus.
Poulter said: “It required everyone to practise something that is fundamental to Navy SEAL mentality – you’re a teammate before you’re an individual.
“When a camera’s roaming around like that and could capture anyone at kind of any moment, it requires that everyone to be ‘on’ at all times and for the sake of each other.
“It becomes less about making sure that you’re performing when the camera lands on you, but as much about this idea that you are performing for the sake of the actor opposite you when the camera’s on them.”
Another of the film’s stars, Reservation Dogs’ D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, plays Mendoza and is the heart of the film.
Woon-A-Tai says the cast drew on tactics used by real soldiers to help with the intense filming schedule: “Laughter is medicine… A lot of times these are long takes, long hours, back-to-back days, so uplifting our spirit was definitely a big part of it.”
He also joked that shaving each other’s heads in a bonding ritual the night before the first day of filming was a daunting task.
“As actors, we love our hair. I mean, I speak personally, I love my hair. You know, I had really long hair. So yeah, it definitely takes a lot of trust. And you know, it wasn’t even at all, but you know it was still fun to do.”
Warfare is in cinemas now.
Birmingham band UB40 say the city’s striking bin workers and their union should “keep fighting” in their dispute over pay.
It comes as the government and the council urged them to accept a “fair and reasonable offer”.
“We’re fully on their side,” drummer Jimmy Brown told Sky News. “I think they shouldn’t give up, they should still be fighting.
“Working people shouldn’t have to take a reduction in their incomes, which is what we’re talking about here.
“We’re talking about people being paid less and it seems to me with prices going up, heating, buying food, inflation and rents going up then people need a decent wage to have a half decent life… keep going boys!”
Members of the Unite union in Birmingham earlier this month. Pic: PA
Workers joined picket lines again on Thursday, with some fearing they could be up to £600 a month worse off if they accept the terms.
“We have total utter support for the bin men and all trade unions,” said guitarist Robin Campbell.
“The other side is always going to say they’ve made a reasonable offer – the point is they’re the ones who’ve messed up, they’re the ones who’ve gone bankrupt, they’re the ones now trying to reduce the bin men’s wages.”
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Lead singer Matt Doyle told Sky News: “It’s a shame that what we’re seeing is all the images of rats and rubbish building up, that is going to happen inevitably, but we’ve just got to keep fighting through that.”
About 22,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the city’s streets after a major incident was declared last month by Birmingham City Council.
Rubbish has blighted the city’s streets for weeks . Pic: PA
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Bin situation ‘pains me’ – council boss
On a visit to the city, local government minister Jim McMahon said the union and local authority should continue to meet in “good faith” and the government felt there was a deal that could be “marshalled around”.
He paid tribute to the “hundreds of workers” who have worked “around the clock” to clear the rubbish.
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“As we stand here today, 85% of that accumulated waste has been cleared and the council have a plan in place now to make sure it doesn’t accumulate going forward,” said Mr McMahon.
Sky News understands talks are not set to resume until next week.
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