Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who has had close ties to Harvey Weinstein during his directing career, opened up about the sexual misconduct scandal swirling around Weinstein, admitting that he should have done something about it a long time ago.

Tarantino “has known for decades about the producer’s alleged misconduct toward women and now feels ashamed he did not take a stronger stand and stop working with him, he said in an interview,” The New York Times reports.

The report quotes Tarantino saying: “I knew enough to do more than I did. There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”

Tarantino adds: “I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”

The report says Tarantino had heard about Weinstein’s behavior long before recent articles in The New York Times and The New Yorker brought them to widespread attention.

“His own former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, told him about unwelcome advances and unwanted touching by Mr. Weinstein,” The Times reports. “Another actress told him a similarly upsetting story years later. He also knew that the actress Rose McGowan had reached a settlement with the producer.”

Said Tarantino: “What I did was marginalize the incidents. Anything I say now will sound like a crappy excuse.”