Until a few weeks earlier, Mr. Sitrick’s crisis management firm, Sitrick and Company, had been managing Mr. Weinstein’s unprecedented crisis.

Mr. Sitrick had dropped Mr. Weinstein, but he couldn’t say why. He couldn’t confirm if it was because Mr. Weinstein had stopped paying his bills, though he could confirm it was true that Mr. Weinstein had stopped paying his bills, and that the two parties were in arbitration.

He couldn’t say if there were other factors. But he could say what were not factors. He could confirm, for instance, that he did not resign out of concern for his company’s own reputation. “You can’t do that,” Mr. Sitrick said. “You cannot put your firm’s interests ahead of the client’s interests.”