On Thursday news broke that Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein had settled at least eight cases of sexual harassment spanning decades.
As the story raced across the internet, Weinstein — and his legal adviser Lisa Bloom — sought to stem the damage with a statement from the Oscar winning mogul, expressing his remorse.
Unfortunately, Weinstein’s mea culpa included a quotation from Jay-Z’s album 4:44. And while Spin swiftly pointed out that the filmmaker actually butchered the quote, that didn’t stop the Twitterverse from running with it.
“Jay Z wrote in 4:44 ‘I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.’ The same is true for me,” Weinstein said in his statement.
That little nugget sparked some prompt dragging on Twitter.
Don’t quote Jay-Z, Harvey. Just, no. pic.twitter.com/Ua79HvNABB
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) October 5, 2017
You can tell Harvey Weinstein truly regrets and understands the seriousness of his actions because he quoted Jay-Z in his apology.
— Lauren Greenberg (@LaurenGreenberg) October 5, 2017
jay z would like to be excluded from this narrative
— yohana desta (@YohanaDesta) October 5, 2017
In which Weinstein 1. quotes Jay Z 2. picks fight w/NRA 3. brags about funding female directors 4. plugs Trump movie https://t.co/yDOFK08Wyx
— Meredith Blake (@MeredithBlake) October 5, 2017
Harvey Weinstein’s statement: 64 year-old man learns that sexual harassment is bad, quotes Jay Z https://t.co/M3JN3CLduD
— “TBONE” O’Sullivan (@Bro_Pair) October 5, 2017
This memo is an all-time whoa, from hiring a decency tutor to invoking Jay Z. https://t.co/VTm6WdkMkO
— Erin Keane (@eekshecried) October 5, 2017
Keep it https://t.co/FkVJJT8P4x
— Ira Madison III (@ira) October 5, 2017
WEINSTEIN QUOTES JAY-Z IN THE FULL STATEMENT.
This is insane. https://t.co/x6wq55ZbNT
— Robert Silverman (@BobSaietta) October 5, 2017
An incomprehensibly absurd statement from Harvey Weinstein. ‘Tutoring,’ Jay-Z quote, and wtf that last paragraph… https://t.co/Pl4YiRV2vK pic.twitter.com/Tye0PJkojG
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) October 5, 2017
You can read read Weinstein’s full statement here.