The Weinstein Slapping Incident: It Just Keeps Getting Weirder and Weirderer

After seeing the news blurb last night that Harvey Weinstein was slapped Tuesday night while leaving a five-star Arizona restaurant, I couldn’t help but giggle. While Hollywood accepts and allows perverts and pedos to mingle among them, it would seem that some folks in other less-captured parts of country are a little less willing to go along with the program.

The story making the rounds is that a couple of guys — on of them whose named “Steve” — went out to dinner at Elements restaurants located within Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, and spotted Harvey dining at a nearby table with another man said to be his “sobriety coach.” Steve decided to approach him. He told Harvey he loved his movies and asked to have a photo taken with him. Harvey declined. Steve said Weinstein then became belligerent and told him to buzz off. But the restaurant manager claims Harvey was “very sweet about it” and said, “I’d rather not take a picture right now.” The manager says the two shook hands and Steve went back to his table, TMZ reports.

So Steve and his buddy dined, had a few cocktails and apparently plotted a confrontation. When Weinstein and his handler got up to leave, Steve told his friend to film him as he approached the movie mogul for a second time. The video shows Steve engaging Weinstein for a moment in what appears to be a friendly way, then taps him lightly on the cheek with the back of his hand. He then calls Harvey a piece of shit and tell him to get out of the restaurant.

The restaurant manager who witnessed the event told TMZ that “neither attempted punch connected,” and Steve “was drunk and out of control.” The police were not called and no report was filed.

Without further ado …

As you can imagine, Twitter had a field day with this one.

Can’t believe we got our hands on the video of Harvey Weinstein getting slapped. pic.twitter.com/350FbPZa4A

— Jim Jefferies Show (@jefferiesshow) January 10, 2018

Now, I could take this story at face value and go about my day, no problem. But Russ has trained me to look critically at these things, and there’s some stuff here that looks kinda fishy.

Harvey, for unexplained reasons, is in Arizona at a resort known for being Hollywood’s honeymoon hideaway. He’s dining in a high-end restaurant, but he’s dressed like a homeless man at a soup kitchen — unshaven, knit cap, grey t-shirt covered in gravy stains. Restaurants like this have dress codes, no? Certainly the manager could have used it as an excuse not accept this creep’s reservation. The man Harvey is dining with is an Anton LaVey lookalike. Are those playbooks under the coach’s arm or a couple of movie scripts? I’m guessing the latter. Okay, whatever.

The slapper, however, looks like an actor I’ve seen in small roles over the years. The cameraman is unknown, but his camera appears to have projection light. Is this a new feature on cellphone cameras? The video isn’t grainy, but it has those Crime Syndicate trademark effects of obscuring the action and panning away at key moments. Notice in the headline photo, that the “sobriety coach’s” hand is blocking filming of the slap.

The double-tap backhanded slap doesn’t appear to be as hard as the sound it creates indicates. Try it out on someone with a beard. It makes almost no sound. Was the slap sound dubbed in later? And a backhanded slap tap? That’s sort of a weird move. Harvey doesn’t really react to it initially. Rather, he takes a couple steps away, then stumbles sideways in a weird delayed reaction or poor performance. He should be sober giving that he’s dining with his sobriety coach.

Lol at all the headlines saying that Harvey Weinstein was “punched” and “attacked” at an Arizona restaurant. He was slapped gently on the cheek. It was the meekest assault in the history of assaults. Certainly Weinstein would know a real assault if he saw one.

— Erik Kain (@erikkain) January 10, 2018

But the most odd thing about the video is the lack of reaction from restaurant patrons. A man in a swanky restaurant is slapping a movie mogul and saying to him “you’re a piece of shit” and “get the fuck outa here” and NOBODY in the restaurant turns to look? Really?

And at this stage in his troubles, Weinstein has no security whatsoever?

Was this a staged scene by satanists to bend a narrative? Is it an attempt to generate sympathy for Weinstein? Does the Crime Syndicate want to signal to us that although a person may be a vile scumbag, it’s not okay to confront them in public? I don’t know. All I do know is that something about it looks staged.

Harvey Weinstein was slapped in a restaurant but the dude hasn’t been charged and men are calling for charges to be laid regardless of Harvey’s consent because “that’s assault, full stop, no excuses” and I can’t process this level of sick irony

— Sheena Millar (@Arbitral) January 10, 2018

Consent to be slapped?