'You will burn. You will be an empty suit coffin.'
Actress Rose McGowan has been shining a light on Hollywood’s sexual harassment problem for years and she reaffirmed her commitment to it yesterday. Beyond reliving her alleged sexual assault to calling out her former Charmed co-star Alyssa Milano, she proudly called herself the ‘architect’ of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall in a number of ferocious interviews.
In her new memoir Brave, she described in detail her alleged rape by Harvey Weinstein in a jacuzzi during the Sundance Film festival in 1997. When asked about the blisteringly honest passage by Whoopi Goldberg on The View, she said, ‘Women and anybody who is attacked, you just leave your body. Everything happens so fast and so slow...For years it haunted me.’
She also described the events that unfolded later, after which she told everybody that would listen including her manager at the time. She said, [My manager] got a job with him for seven years right afterwards. I went to the management company, the bigger managers than her, and I remember it because it was so close to what Ben Affleck said and I was struck by it at the time. They said, ‘God damn it. I told him to stop doing that. I just had an LA Times story killed about him. He owes it to me to stop doing that.’’
Rose McGowan, who has been a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement and the founder of the #RoseArmy collective that fight against systemic sexual harassment, released a documentary series on Tuesday called Citizen Rose that follows her story. Ahead of the premiere, Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys said her claims were ‘a bold lie’ in a statement.
In response, she fired off a ferocious tweet saying, ‘Fuck you you fucking douche bag loser from hell. You will burn. You will be an empty suit coffin. You go fall off the planet you fuck. #RoseArmy BREATHE FIRE’.
Rose was also a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert yesterday evening, where she called out Harvey Weinstein for his pattern of ‘gaslighting’ women who come forwards and noting snidely that she was the only one in the situation that had been handcuffed.
Stephen brought up the initial wave of the #MeToo movement six months prior and said, ‘Six months ago before you and other people had the courage to come out against Harvey Weinstein-’
‘Mine was a year ago. I was the architect,’ she interrupted him.
Rose has previously called out other #MeToo and Times Up advocates such as Meryl Streep for their commitment to the cause, who she recently apologised to. However her stance has yet to change on Alyssa Milano, who has been a prominent voice in the #MeToo movement by elevating founder Tarana Burke’s initial hashtag. She doubled down on her claims that her former co-star didn’t have its best interests at heart.
She told Nightline, ‘I don’t like her...I think she’s a lie.’
She flagged Alyssa’s marriage to CAA agent Dave Bugliari as problematic, saying, ‘Do you think I don’t know these people? I’m not looking at this from the outside...I know [Milano is] married to a CAA agent. Do the mat. Who’s behind Time’s Up? CAA. Where do they meet? CAA. Who needs good PR? CAA. Who are part of the pimp problem? CAA.’
Alyssa Milano has since responded to Rose’s allegations, saying, ‘I am and always have been completely supportive of Rose and admire her bravery and speaking out about her experiences. My goal throughout the past few months with both #MeToo and the TimesUp movement has been to use my platform to give others a voice so we can all work together to stamp out sexual harassment and sexual assault.’
Rose McGowan’s book Brave is now available worldwide and the pilot of her documentary series Citizen Rose was released on E! in the US on Tuesday. In its first episode, she and fellow Weinstein-accuser Asia Argento met and recounted their experiences to one another in a an emotional scene.
