During a recent Q&A session, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain casually dropped a reference to Quentin Tarantino as an example of why it can be bad to value money too much, explaining that he once turned down a lucrative merchandising deal because he and his producing partners weren’t “comfortable” with the person offering the deal. He says it “was a lot of money,” but taking it “would have been a slow-acting poison that would have nibbled away at our souls until we ended up like Quentin Tarantino, looking back at a life of complicity, shame, and compromise.” That comes from Variety, which says Bourdain wouldn’t expand further beyond indicating that he was referring to the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
All of Tarantino’s films have been financed by Weinstein to some extent, and it took him a noticeably long time to denounce the now-former studio head in the wake of the many sexual harassment and assault allegations that have been introduced lately. He initially said he was “stunned and heartbroken” by the allegations and needed to process what was happening, but he later came forward and admitted that he “knew enough to do more” than he had done and noted that his financial dependency on Weinstein did hold him back from looking into rumors about his behavior too closely.
As Variety notes, Bourdain is also currently dating Asia Argento, whose accusations against Weinstein have been met with such a backlash in her home country of Italy that she has moved to Germany.