Someday, the twists and turns that led to Ron Meyer’s shocking exit from NBCUniversal might make for a great Ryan Murphy Netflix show or Karina Longworth podcast series. But for now, the story of Meyer’s ouster from the company after 25 years has been told through the Hollywood trade press.
On Tuesday, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell and Meyer announced that Meyer was out at the company after admitting to an affair and allegedly being subjected to an extortion attempt. The latest beats, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety this week, focus on the woman with whom Meyer was allegedly involved: British actor Charlotte Kirk.
Kirk, as the trades have noted, first gained notoriety last year after a scandal involving another affair: her relationship with former Warner Bros. boss Kevin Tsujihara. In March 2019, The Hollywood Reporter broke the story that the studio head had engaged in a relationship with a then 21-year-old Kirk in 2013; the news led to Tsujihara’s subsequent ouster.
According to THR, Meyer and Kirk met initially at a Hollywood Foreign Press Association event in 2012, before Kirk was involved with Tsujihara. But while Meyer and Kirk’s relationship was brief, both Deadline and The Wrap reported this week that, in 2019, as the Tsujihara scandal was breaking, Meyer allegedly sought to broker some kind of settlement between Kirk and Tsujihara. But according to The Wrap, Kirk allegedly “regretted” the terms of their settlement and “blamed” Meyer for the figure. (Tsujihara and Kirk have both denied any written settlements were agreed upon, though The Hollywood Reporter did reveal in 2019 that a draft settlement between the parties existed.)
Then there’s the alleged extortion Meyer mentioned specifically in his resignation note. According to Variety, the former executive sought help from the FBI after other parties became aware of an alleged settlement he had made with the actor. (It is not known whether the FBI is investigating those claims.) Those parties attempted to extort money from Meyer, he said, allegedly saying that if he did not pay them, they would falsely implicate NBCUniversal and publish false allegations about Meyer.
Kirk is not one of the two people who allegedly tried to extort Meyer; according to The Wrap, those men are, allegedly, directors Neil Marshall and Joshua Newton. (The Wrap writes that Newton is a former boyfriend of Kirk’s, while Variety reports that Marshall is living with Kirk.) Newton did not respond to a request for comment, while Marshall forcefully denied that claim in a statement to The Wrap. “The allegations concerning myself, Ron Meyer and NBC/Universal are nothing but lies based upon falsehoods,” Marshall said in a separate statement to Vanity Fair. “What we have here is a witch-hunt, plain and simple, perpetrated by overprivileged men in positions of power, aided by friends of equal standing and lack of ethics, fueled by clickbait headlines such as we’ve seen these past few days, and carried out against the woman I love, my fiancé Charlotte Kirk.” Representatives for Newton did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Vanity Fair.
Kirk, for her part, has remained silent so far—not that outlets haven’t tried to get her to speak. Both the New York Times and Variety reported that when contacted this week, her representatives asked for a fee in exchange for an interview. Last year, when her text messages to Tsujihara, Brett Ratner, and James Packer—who apparently introduced Kirk and Tsujihara—were published by The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk responded by releasing a statement: “I emphatically deny any inappropriate [behavior] on the part of Brett Ratner, James Packer, and Kevin Tsujihara, and I have no claims against any of them,” she said. “I confirm that I was in a romantic relationship with James Packer in the summer of 2013 and that I was treated with respect by Mr. Packer, and I have no issues with him or claims against him. I further confirm that when the relationship ended I sought the advice of Mr. Tsujihara whom I had been introduced to by Mr. Packer. Mr. Tsujihara never promised me anything. I also confirm that Brett Ratner helped me out of friendship to assist me in getting auditions and trying to help me find an agent, and I have no issues with him or claims against him. I deny that there was any legal settlement or agreement entered into between myself and Brett Ratner in 2016.”
After the story broke, Kirk gave an interview to The Daily Mail, calling the story “devastating.” She also claimed she “begged” The Hollywood Reporter “not to leak whatever they leaked, [but] they went ahead and still done it.”
“It’s a shame because there’s two really main points,” she said in that interview. “This happened a long time ago, and second of all, it wasn’t me that released them.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— Exposing the Fall of CBS Showrunner Peter Lenkov
— How Sarah Cooper Trumped Donald Trump—Without Saying a Word
— An Exclusive First Look at the TV Drama That Will Enrage Trump
— Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking Only Scratches the Surface of a Big Problem
— How Olivia de Havilland Learned Hattie McDaniel Defeated Her at the 1940 Oscars
— See Ryan Murphy and Sarah Paulson’s Ode to an Iconic Villain: Nurse Ratched
— From the Archive: Inside Olivia de Havilland’s Notorious Lifelong Feud With Sister Joan Fontaine
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.