Seth Freedman
| Seth Freedman | |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Occupation | Former stockbroker and Guardian contributor; investigator for Black Cube |
| Known for | Posing as a journalist to gather information for Black Cube's Harvey Weinstein operation (2016–17) |
| Parents | |
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| Website | |
Seth Freedman is a British former City stockbroker and Guardian contributor who worked for the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube. During the firm's 2016–17 operation for Harvey Weinstein he approached the actress Rose McGowan and other women with allegations against Weinstein, as well as journalists investigating him, presenting himself as a journalist working on a story. He has publicly defended the work.[1][2]
Background
According to his Guardian contributor profile, Freedman worked as a stockbroker in the City of London for six years before moving to Israel, and served for 15 months in a combat unit of the Israel Defense Forces between 2004 and 2006. He was the whistleblower at the centre of a gas price-fixing scandal in November 2012.[3] Farrow wrote that he had exposed his firm's alleged manipulation of wholesale gas prices in the Guardian and was fired for releasing the information.[1] Byline Times reported that, on returning to London in 2006, he wrote for the Guardian's Comment is Free pages, and that according to his own blog he also began doing investigative work for corporate clients while writing for the paper.[4]
Timeline
| # | Date | Event | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Before c. 2004 | Stockbroker in the City of London for six years | [3] |
| 2 | 2004–2006 | Serves 15 months in an IDF combat unit | [3] |
| 3 | From 2006 | Writes for the Guardian's Comment is Free | [4] |
| 4 | November 2012 | Whistleblower in a gas price-fixing scandal | [3] |
| 5 | 2016–2017 | Hired by Black Cube for the Weinstein operation; approaches Ben Wallace, Rose McGowan, Zelda Perkins, Annabella Sciorra and Ronan Farrow | [1] |
| 6 | 17 August 2018 | Sends hostile WhatsApp messages to the Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr | [4] |
| 7 | October 2019 | Named in Ronan Farrow's New Yorker series and book on Black Cube | [1] |
| 8 | January 2020 | Interviewed on BBC HARDtalk; says he does not feel guilty about his work for Black Cube | [2][5] |
Black Cube and Weinstein
According to Farrow, Black Cube's contract with Weinstein provided for "an investigative journalist, as per the Client request", who would conduct ten interviews a month for four months and be paid $40,000. The firm chose Freedman, "an Englishman who had written for the Guardian". He gathered information about the allegations against Weinstein while taking instructions from a Black Cube project manager by email and WhatsApp.[1]
Freedman called the New York magazine journalist Ben Wallace, offering to help with a Weinstein story he had heard Wallace was working on. "He was pumping me for what I had heard and learned," Wallace told Farrow. Freedman also emailed HarperCollins, McGowan's publisher, and then spoke to McGowan herself, telling her he was working on a piece about Hollywood and pressing her on her book and on whether she was talking to other reporters. Zelda Perkins, a former Weinstein assistant, and the actress Annabella Sciorra also received inquiries from him. He called Farrow too, offering material "we really can't use", and warned him about libel law.[1] When Farrow contacted him in autumn 2017, Freedman described the people who had tipped him off first as "them" and then as "we", and said: "I was in the Israeli Army. I know a lot of people involved in Israeli intelligence."[1]
Public defence
In January 2020, as Weinstein's New York trial began, Freedman gave interviews to BBC HARDtalk and wrote an opinion piece for The Times. The BBC described him as a man who "freely admits to being a spy. Not for any government but for the private investigators Black Cube", and who "posed as a journalist to gather information for Mr. Weinstein".[2] According to Page Six, he told the BBC that Weinstein had initially wanted Black Cube to look into five people, a list that grew to 91 including "actors and actresses", and told The Times that Weinstein paid the firm "a seven-figure sum". He said there had been "no intimidation, no silencing, no harassing" in his work, adding: "I don’t feel guilty about anything I did for Black Cube."[5]
Carole Cadwalladr
Byline Times reported in January 2020 that Freedman had been in contact with Carole Cadwalladr, who was then reporting on Cambridge Analytica, after another journalist introduced them in 2018. He told her that he had served in the Israeli military and that Black Cube had also been "hired by Trump". On 17 August 2018, after a tweet in which she wondered whether Israeli intelligence had played any part in British politics, he sent her a series of WhatsApp messages accusing her of antisemitism. They included "Gonna gun for you every time you rear your ugly head" and "My tapes of our many calls are going to bury you". The article said Cadwalladr then left social media for a month.[4] The account was written by Peter Jukes, Cadwalladr's colleague and the recipient of the forwarded messages. Byline Times said it had approached Freedman and Black Cube for comment and had not heard back. It also noted that Freedman told the BBC he worked as a private spy only on a "case-by-case basis" and no longer worked for Black Cube.[4]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Ronan Farrow, Ronan Farrow’s Black Cube Chronicles, Part II: The Undercover Operative, The New Yorker, 8 October 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Seth Freedman - Former Black Cube employee, HARDtalk, BBC News, first broadcast 16 January 2020.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Seth Freedman, contributor profile, The Guardian, accessed 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Peter Jukes, Black Cube Employee Working for Harvey Weinstein also Targeted Carole Cadwalladr over the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Byline Times, 27 January 2020. Jukes worked with Cadwalladr and is a party to the events described.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lee Brown, Spy admits he helped Harvey Weinstein investigate Rose McGowan, 90 others, Page Six (New York Post), 14 January 2020.