“Charmed” actress Rose McGowan minces no words about her feelings toward studio executive Harvey Weinstein, whose history of sexual harassment was laid bare last week in a New York Times exposé.
McGowan, also a director, has suggested that anyone who does business with Weinstein is “complicit” and “even dirtier,” and has called for women in Hollywood to speak up against a misogynistic “power structure that needs to be brought down.”
On Sunday night, following the announcement that Weinstein had been fired from his own company, McGowan raised her voice once more — calling this time for the company’s entire board to resign and for men in Hollywood to “change” their behavior.
Rose McGowan (center) poses with director and then-boyfriend Robert Rodriguez (left) and Harvey Weinstein (right) in 2007. Last year, McGowan tweeted that “her ex sold our movie to my rapist for distribution.” Some have speculated that she was referring to Rodriguez and Weinstein, respectively.
“I’m calling on the board to resign effective immediately,” McGowan told Hollywood Reporter. “And for other men to stop other men when they are being disgusting.”
“Men in Hollywood need to change ASAP,” she added. “Hollywood’s power is dying because society has changed and grown, and yet Hollywood male behavior has not. It is so not a good look ... The men of Hollywood need to know they own no woman.”
Almost half of The Weinstein Company’s all-male board has resigned since the publication of the explosive Times report. Just four of the original nine board members (which had included Weinstein himself) are believed to remain. They include Weinstein’s brother Bob Weinstein, co-founder of the company.
The Times reported that McGowan received a $100,000 settlement from Weinstein in 1997 after “an episode in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival.” McGowan, according to the article, was one of at least eight women who had reached settlements with Weinstein over sexual harassment allegations.
McGowan declined to comment for the Times’ report (some have speculated that she kept mum because her settlement may have involved a non-disclosure agreement). Talk that she was sexually assaulted by Weinstein has circulated since at least 2016, when McGowan tweeted about being “raped” by a studio executive.
She’s emerged in the past few days as one of Weinstein’s most fervent critics. In a Sunday tweet, she obliquely referred to him as a “monster”:
She also suggested she donated her “settlement” to the East Los Angeles Women’s Center, an organization dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. And she lauded both the Times and the women who have spoken out against Weinstein for “bravery.”