Rose McGowan Responds To Harvey Weinstein: “Old-Fashioned Sexist Attempt To Undermine Obvious Truth”

Rose McGowan today lashed out at Harvey Weinstein over his use of emails from Ben Affleck and Jill Messick to deny the actress’ claims that the disgraced mogul raped her.

Here is the full statement, which is attributed to McGowan though it’s not in the first person:

Yesterday’s statement from Mr. Weinstein and his attorney Ben Brafman unequivocally proves a continued attempt to malign, smear and “slut shame” Rose McGowan.  It is an affront not only to Rose but to the hundreds of women who have come forward with their stories of harassment, sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by Mr. Weinstein and those like him. This is a sad, pathetic old-fashioned sexist attempt to undermine obvious truth and the gaslighting will no longer be tolerated. The “performance” is him and his complicity machine, and they are bad actors.

Mr. Weinstein has used his power to violate Rose in all too many ways, even resorting to proven espionage tactics in attempt to cover up his crimes. The statement released yesterday by the retrograde lawyer also clearly proves Mr. Weinstein was on a fishing expedition to target and coerce potential witnesses three months prior to when the first allegations of rape surfaced in the media. Furthermore, the email “evidence” presented from Ben Affleck and Rose’s former manager, Jill Messick, dated from July of last year has already been disproven — by Affleck himself on the Today Show in a statement of support for Rose (“I believe Rose, I support her”) in November of 2017 and by Ms. Messicks’ then-assistant Anne Woodward as reported in the New York Times last October.  These crimes have also been investigated thoroughly by the paper of record, the New York Times, as well as the New Yorker’s incredibly detailed coverage by Ronan Farrow.

Mr. Weinstein’s attempts to discredit Rose is part of his 20 year long campaign to silence her, clearly proving he IS the monster so many women have described him to be.

Like so many other #MeToo’s, Rose will continue to push back at ingrained thought and a corrupt power structure. She will not be commenting further. The truth can be found in her  work: BRAVE the book, it can be found in the rawness of Citizen Rose and in the music, lyrics and emotion of Planet 9. It is time true voices were heard and it is time for the lies to stop.

Yesterday, Weinstein, through his lawyer Ben Brafman, issued a statement denying McGowan’s rape claim, and included the alleged contents of old emails from Affleck and McGowan’s former manager Messick suggesting they could not corroborate McGowan’s claims. In Affleck’s email, the actor wrote to Weinstein that he could not verify McGowan’s claims: “She never told me nor did I ever infer that she was attacked by anyone,” Affleck wrote in the email released by Weinstein. “Any accounts to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about anything Rose did or claimed to have done.’”

In the email from Messick, McGowan’s former manager wrote: “When we met up the following day, she hesitantly told me of her own accord that during the meeting that night before she had gotten into a hot tub with Mr. Weinstein. She was very clear about the fact that getting into that hot tub was something that she did consensually and that in hindsight it was also something that she regretted having done.”

McGowan tweeted her first response to the email release last night: