Harvey Weinstein joke at 2002 Oscars has people shocked by ‘how much’ celebrities knew before he was exposed

Warning: contains references to sexual assault and rape

A joke Nathan Lane made about Harvey Weinstein at an Academy Awards ceremony has recently resurfaced, with people branding it 'scary' looking back.

The 2002 clip has been doing the rounds on X, and shows the moment Lane made a joke about the disgraced film mogul while reading out the nominations.

The clip came as part of the 74th Oscars ceremony which took place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

During the evening, Aron Warner’s Shrek beat out the likes of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Monsters, Inc. to win the Best Animated Feature Film category.

Presenting the award was comedian Lane, who said on stage: “Gosh, up until now I thought Monsters Incorporated was a documentary on the Weinsteins.”

After some muffled and awkward laughter from the audience, the 67-year-old continued: “Oh, we kid the rich and powerful because we love them.”

X/ABC

At an October 2000 bash, which also served as a gala for Clinton as she was running for a US senate seat in New York at the time, Weinstein apparently came for Lane.

It’s claimed Weinstein threw the star up against a wall after he made a joke about the former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani's hair

According to Vulture, he said: “This is my f***ing show, we don't need you”.

In 2017, Lane alluded to the alleged incident and claimed that he’d told Weinstein: “You can't hurt me, I don't have a film career.”

A clip of the Lane's joke has been doing the rounds on social media again, with one X user writing: “Nathan’s a real one for calling out the Weinsteins at the Oscars. That was a time where they were super feared and powerful.”

A second wrote: “Lol at the ‘I thought Monsters Inc was a documentary about the Weinsteins’ crack.”

Another viewer simply wrote: “It's scary”.

BBC

“I love that he wasn't afraid of sticking it to him (and he was probably in the audience, too). Lane is one of my favourite comedic actors for a reason," said another.

Weinstein was arrested in May 2018 and charged with rape and other offences after over 80 women came forward to accuse him of non-consensual acts over the course of his film career.

Despite denying any accusations of ‘non-consensual sex’, he was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment in March 2020.

He was also sentenced to an additional 16 years after being convicted in Los Angeles of two counts of sexual assault and one count of rape.