Wrong 'uns & their comeuppance
It's important to remember that sometimes the bad guy doesn't win
A lot of news coverage & social media posts across the past week have been about a certain shiny-pated cookery show TV host, allegations of his inappropriate behaviour & his insanely tone-deaf reaction to his predicament. Honestly, can you imagine being Gregg Wallace’s PR team? I would imagine it’s akin to screaming into a void. And whilst he is currently only suspended: at least something has finally happened as the production company were warned about his alleged behaviour & women who worked with him lodged complaints - the earliest dating back to 2005, the year he started hosting Masterchef. Melanie Sykes even confirmed this week that Wallace was the reason she quit TV, Kirsty Wark revealed she lodged a complaint about his behaviour following her appearance on Celebrity Masterchef and Sir Rod Stewart let rip on Instagram about Wallace’s treatment of his wife, Penny Lancaster, during her time on the show
All of this got me thinking that it’s important to remind ourselves that there are times when the bad guy doesn’t get away with it. Especially given the general sense that, politically at least, the bad guy is getting away with a hell of a lot right now.
This week I’m sharing tales of famous men and their downfalls, of which there have been several in recent years. For some, this might seem wildly depressing, but I think it is incredibly important to know these stories: what happened and how these men were brought down. (& I should note that the allegations against Wallace are of different magnitude to the men below, but still, if / when found to be true: none of them should have done any of it.)
These events have led to such a wealth of books, podcasts, tv shows (both documentaries & dramas) and movies that I’ve organised this week’s newsletter a little differently. The TL;DR will give you all the titles separated into the usual groups of Watch / Listen / Read; the main body of the newsletter is divided per scandal and the best titles I’ve come across on each.
And don’t worry, if this really isn’t your bag: festive fun is to come next week. Though to be honest, there’s a depressing amount of wrong ‘uns out there so I struggled to whittle everything down to what is below.
TL;DR
Watch The Loudest Voice, Catch & Kill; listen to Chasing Cosby & The Trial of Diddy; read Catch & Kill & She Said; watch Bombshell & She Said.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN
Catch & Kill
Ronan Farrow poured years of work into the creation of Catch & Kill: his investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and the follow-up practice of silencing those he abused in order to preserve his position success, status & wealth. And it was not an easy story to convince news outlets to tell publicly due to pressure from Weinstein & his network.
Farrow & his colleagues were themselves threatened in the pursuit of the victims’ accounts and evidence to back up what they had to say. The lengths to which Weinstein went to in order to keep the truth from emerging are genuinely unbelievable - except that it all happened. We’re talking hiring ex Israeli spies to prevent Farrow publishing what he had discovered. Yes, really. So it should come as no surprise that Farrow has milked every last drop out of that work. There is a book to read, a podcast to listen to and a documentary to watch. #content eh?
She Said
Another angle to the Harvey Weinstein scandal was the story told by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey in their book She Said. Published a month before Catch & Kill, She Said focuses less on the methods employed to keep survivors of Weinstein’s abuse silent and more on the women’s accounts of what Weinstein did to them.
It’s a forensic examination of what these women endured and the lengths to which they (Kantor & Twohey) had to go to in order to meet the standard of proof to enable publication of the story. The book also details how widely Weinstein’s influence reached and how those under his influence came to be part of a network that served to keep the abuse hidden.
She Said the movie was released in 2022 starring Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as well as featuring actress Ashley Judd as herself - who had been harassed by Weinstein in 2015 and later found her career suffered due to lies he spread about her when she spoke out about what he did.
Depressingly the film was considered a box office bomb despite favourable reviews…it is definitely worth a watch & it’s now on Netflix so do give it a shot.
ROGER AILES (Former Fox News boss)
Russell Crowe stars as Roger Ailes (the obese bully that turned Fox News into right-wing opinion-riddled ‘news’ channel we know today) in The Loudest Voice.
The TV series tells the story of Ailes’ rise to chairman and CEO of Fox, abuse of some female employees and how he was toppled whilst arguably at the height of those powers. Sienna Miller stars as Roger Ailes wildly loyal wife, Beth, and Naomi Watts as Gretchen Carlson, the TV anchor who stood up to him. Whilst an uncomfortable watch at times, it does come with what so many true crime podcasts lack these days: a satisfying ending where the bad guy gets what is coming to him. It’s delicious.
Bombshell is the feature-length movie version of the Ailes story; more from the point of view of the women affected. It has a stellar cast: this time around fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman plays Gretchen Carlson, Charlize Theron plays Megyn Kelly (also known for being accused by Trump of having ‘blood coming out of her wherever’ & yet just a few short years later, she introduced him at a rally in Pittsburgh days before the election), Margot Robbie & John Lithgow as Roger Ailes. Frustratingly, like She Said, the movie, the box office results were disappointing in the face of positive reviews. So do give it a watch on Amazon Prime Video - it’s free for those with a subscription.
SEAN COMBS (aka Puff Daddy / P Diddy & other nonsense)
Whilst still very much ongoing, the list of Sean Coombs’s (aka Puff Daddy, aka Puffy aka P Diddy aka Diddy aka Love - apparently that’s the latest moniker, anyone else bored of this already?) is enormous. Probably miles long.
So finding The Trial of Diddy has been very useful: hosted by journalist Marjorie Hernandez, the podcast goes back through Combs’s career, speaking to former colleagues & survivors of his abuse alike. Parts of it are harrowing, but it’s a frank description of just what the guy was getting away with whilst throwing his annual White Party and producing some of the world’s biggest music. As one interviewee says, it would be impossible to listen to a pop song of the past twenty five years that can’t, in some way, be traced back to Combs.
Combs is currently in jail - having been denied bail three times - awaiting trial but has already been accused of using jail communications to influence witnesses - so we are still waiting for this bad guy to get what’s due.
There’s also a BBC Sounds podcast that has begun in recent weeks: Diddy on Trial but I haven’t yet had a chance to listen.
BILL COSBY
And finally, Bill Cosby. He was America’s dad - Dr Huxtable, an avuncular, successful Black man on prime time TV in awful jumpers, he couldn’t be a wrong ‘un, could he??
Unfortunately he was absolutely heinous and the excellent podcast Chasing Cosby goes through exactly what he did. The allegations against him stretch back to 1965 and whilst he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault in 2018, the conviction was later overturned. The story doesn’t deliver the neat conclusion that previous villains have experienced but Cosby hasn’t quite escaped scott free as he is facing lawsuits from other alleged victims of his drug ‘em & shag ‘em M.O.