Meryl Streep's brand under threat over Weinstein denials
She started the year leading the chorus of criticism against US President Donald Trump.
But 12 months on, US actress Meryl Streep, multiple Oscar winner and doyenne of the liberal Hollywood elite, has become a target.
The 68-year-old has come under fire over repeated denials that she knew about the sexual misconduct of Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, having worked with him on several Weinstein-produced films and jokingly referred to him as "God" at the 2012 Golden Globes.
On Tuesday, about a dozen posters appeared in Los Angeles, depicting Streep as an enabler of Weinstein.
Sabo, a 49-year-old right-wing guerilla artist and former US marine, claimed responsibility for the posters, which show Streep with a red stripe across her face and the text "She knew".
He said he had conceived the campaign as retaliation for Streep using her latest film The Post to attack Mr Trump, who is facing accusations of his own by as many as 16 women who say he sexually assaulted them.
Celebrity branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev, who solicits opinions twice a year about the rich and famous from 2,000 randomly-selected adults across the US as part of an ongoing study established in 2012, said 58 per cent of those surveyed in October on attitudes to the Weinstein controversy "now feel negatively towards the once-beloved Streep" following her initial denials.
"Streep's claims that she did not know are ludicrous and the kiss of death for her image in Hollywood," the bestselling author of The Kim Kardashian Principle said, accusing Streep of underestimating the intelligence of the public and the courage of female peers who had spoken out against Weinstein. - AFP
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