Rich McHugh, a former NBC producer who worked with journalist Ronan Farrow, criticized attorney Lisa Bloom on Friday for her previous work for since-convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.
“She had long been working on behalf of victims, and then went to the dark side, and represented Harvey Weinstein,” McHugh said during an interview with Law&Crime Network host Jesse Weber. “In my opinion, that’s unforgivable with what she does. And I think she’s trying to rewrite history.”
You can watch the interview in the player above.
Law&Crime reached out to Bloom for comment about the interview. She said that if some want to hate her forever for representing Weinstein, she wishes them peace.
“I’ve spent decades representing victims. My law firm, The Bloom Firm, is one of the largest victims rights firms in the country, representing hundreds of victims currently. I’m currently in a small town in Tennessee working hard for a sexual harassment victim earning minimum wage,” Bloom said in a statement. “The media will never cover her case nor the many others we fight daily, as no celebrity is involved. Nevertheless we persist. I’ve apologized long ago for the mistake I made in that defense work I did briefly. If some want to hate me forever for it, I wish them peace.”
Weinstein has been accused of being a prolific sexual abuser. Dozens of women have stepped forward with allegations spanning decades. Weinstein was convicted on Monday in a New York state court of rape in the third degree in the case of former actress Jessica Mann. He was also convicted of criminal sexual act in the first degree in the case of former production assistant Mimi Haleyi. Bloom, who is well known for representing women against powerful men accused of sexual misconduct, was implicated in the Weinstein scandal from the very beginning, when The New York Times released a bombshell report in Oct. 2017. She was working with the disgraced Hollywood mogul as an adviser and even commented in the article, but she soon resigned.
It was later revealed that Bloom had allegedly plotted to help Weinstein stop journalists from reporting on the sexual misconduct allegations, and that she came up with various ways to discredit accusers, in particular actress Rose McGowan.
“I feel equipped to help you against the Roses of the world, because I have represented so many of them,” she wrote in a memo, according to the book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement. Bloom told Law&Crime last September that her “former client’s current attorneys have strictly forbidden me from discussing anything about his case.” She said she wanted to correct “inaccuracies in the reporting,” but could not risk getting sued or disbarred. Bloom said that being associated with Weinstein was a “colossal mistake.”
“To any who missed it, and especially to the women, I apologize again now,” she said. Nonetheless, the association has followed her.
Readers took issue when a Telegraph headline on Wednesday credited both her mother Gloria Allred (an attorney for Haleyi) and her for taking down Weinstein. The phrasing was inaccurate on its face. Bloom had been Weinstein’s attorney.
“I have said many times that in the past I did occasionally represent accused people,” Bloom said in a recent statement about the Weinstein case. “I no longer do that after I withdrew from the Weinstein matter when the first woman went on the record and accused him of sexual assault. And I hope that justice is done in that trial.”
McHugh’s criticism of Bloom came up when Weber asked him about this statement.
“It was clear as day at a certain point what her role is,” McHugh said. “It’s documented. She admitted to Ronan directly. When we were trying to figure out her allegiance about who was [Weinstein’s] people, and Ronan confronted her, and she said, ‘Ronan, I am his people.'”
The bulk of McHugh’s interview focused on his and Farrow’s story of how NBC squashed their initial work on investigating the Weinstein allegations. He talked about the moment that he decided to leave the company.
“If I stay silent about this, I’m going to remain complicit,” he said. NBC News have denied that executives stood in the way Farrow’s and McHugh’s work.
Editor’s note: this story was updated with a statement from Bloom.
[Image via Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images]
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