Harvey Weinstein, who is awaiting trial for rape and other sex-related crimes, has gone and gotten himself back in the news again. He gave an interview in which he called himself a "forgotten man," not receiving proper credit for the many good things he did for women.
I haven't seen anyone thoroughly fact-check his claims but let's say they're all at least approximately true. Among his many well-compensated attorneys, wasn't there one who could have advised this man to shut the "f" up? Did none of them make a little speech that went something like this —?
You know, Harvey, you may well be right that you did some good things for women that no one is talking about. But if no one is talking about them, it's because they don't really matter until all your legal problems are solved and you show some contrition and regret for the bad things. There is no trade-off here. You don't get a pass on raping someone because you paid her or some other women decently for working on a movie. Bill Cosby did an awful lot of humanitarian work and philanthropy and no one thought it canceled out one rape, let alone all of them.
As your well-compensated attorney, I would advise you to keep out of the public eye as much as possible. If you absolutely must say something, tell the world you're sorry for the way you treated certain women. Even if you're not, say you are. Tell them you've seen the error of your ways and you want to do everything you can to atone for the damage you did…and you'd damn well better sound like it's sincere. Because that's all anyone wants to hear from you now and if you can't pull that off, you're better off saying nothing.
Maybe someone did say that to him and he ignored it. It's been my observation that a lot of wealthy folks have a very real "the rules don't apply to me" attitude and think they can talk (or maybe, talk and buy) their way out of any jam. Not that Weinstein won't deserve whatever happens to him but it's always a little sad when those people find out the rules do apply.