Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey on Harvey Weinstein & “She Said”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: How did you penetrate the difficult and private world of high-profile celebrities?

MEGAN TWOHEY, CO-AUTHOR, “SHE SAID”: Well, that’s a — I mean, that’s a great question. Jodi and I are not — we don’t cover Hollywood. We don’t cover the entertainment industry. We’re investigative journalists. So, we quickly realized we’d sit at our desks saying, “How are we going to get in touch with Uma Thurman, how are we going to get in touch with Gwyneth Paltrow, how are we going to get in touch with Angelina Jolie? I mean, trying to obtain those phone numbers were almost investigations unto themselves. And so, you know, luckily, there were concerned folks spread throughout the entertainment industry who had been very concerned about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior over the years and were able to sort of step in and start to serve as a private switchboard for information, key contact information.

AMANPOUR: It really does sound like a network for revealing this and for change. But let me ask you, because Ashley Judd, I think, was the person who broke the dam. She actually called you somehow knowing that you were seeking this information. And I just want to read a little passage from the book describing your reaction. She called you to say she’s prepared to be named as a source. And she says “Standing amid the neat lines of glass wall and gray carpet, Jodi lost it, like a marathoner collapsing at the finish line. She and Megan had spent months living in a state of suspense and responsibility. They would land the story or they would blow it. They would get actresses on the record or they would not. Weeping, Jodi surged for something to say to Judd that was equal to the moment but still professional. The best she could muster was ‘This means the world to me as a journalist.'” So, take us back to that moment and how emotional it was for you to realize that now you actually had something to build this on.

JODI KANTOR, CO-AUTHOR, “SHE SAID”: Well, we had been working on this for so many months. And I had first contacted Ashley Judd in June of 2017 and we had a private conversation about what had happened with Harvey Weinstein. And all summer with, really, not that many actresses would pick up the phone but the ones who did, and the ones who had stories, we were slowly trying to convince them to go on the record, and it was so difficult. And at the moment, you just described, the — Hollywood’s silence about Harvey Weinstein had held until that moment. People like Rose McGowan, for instance, had tweeted about her allegations but she hadn’t named him. And so when Ashley said she was willing to go on the record, it felt like finally, finally these decades of silence are going to end. And I think for us, it was the first time I thought this story is going to work.