Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Even Nathan Lane Is Not Immune To Harvey Weinstein’s Adult Temper Tantrums

The earth will be flush with the stillness of the apocalypse before humans stop coming forward with stories of suffering at the hands of Harvey Weinstein.

Nathan Lane told his own Monday evening on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and, in classic Nathan Lane fashion, the story is long-winded but ultimately rewarding.

It starts off innocently enough, with Lane’s publicist telling him that Harvey Weinstein would like him to host a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.

Remember Hillary Clinton? She was a presidential candidate way back when America had a government.

Lane accepted the gig, including the caveat that mandated Weinstein would prescreen his jokes in case any of them were offensive.

“We never heard from him until the night of the show,” said Lane. “About an hour beforehand he came backstage like Tony Soprano and he started screaming.”

Weinstein demanded Lane get rid of a slew of jokes and, when Lane refused, Weinstein corroded the tiny actor into a corner, threatening to “ruin him.”

To which Lane says he replied, “You can’t ruin me, I don’t have a film career!”

Although Clinton apologized to Lane on Weinstein’s behalf and begged him to make everyone’s life easier by cutting the jokes (hey, just because she was a candidate for President of the United States of America doesn’t mean she was exempt from a woman’s very important responsibility of apologizing on behalf of emotionally immature and entitled and physically abusive men), I think it’s safe to say Lane got the last word in.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.