Rose McGowan opened up during a new TV interview about allegedly being sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival.
“A lot of victims and survivors will say they detach and you really do,” McGowan, who was being filmed by MTV at the festival 20 years ago, explained on Good Morning America on Tuesday, January 30. “You float up above your body because you’re trying to figure out … Literally when he grabbed me I was thinking, ‘Oh I hope I still have lipstick on for the [MTV] camera.’”
“Your brain is in another place and all of a sudden your body is like, ‘What, what, what,'” she continued. “This is not what I expected at 10 in the morning.”
As previously reported, the Charmed alum, 44, has been a voice of resistance against sexual harassment since tweeting in October 2017 that Weinstein had allegedly raped her. Weinstein has since denied all allegations of rape against him.
The New York Times later reported that the actress and former studio head had reached a $100,000 settlement following the alleged 1997 incident. The payout was “not to be construed as an admission” of guilt by Weinstein, but intended to “avoid litigation and buy peace,” according to legal documents obtained by the Times.
McGowan opened up about the settlement on GMA on Tuesday, explaining that she attempted to use the payout to buy a billboard: “It was my only way of saying, ‘I didn’t like this. I didn’t want this.’ It was my only form of voice.”
Now, McGowan wants to see justice for herself and the dozens of other women who have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, harassment and assault. “I wish there were charges because I find it very strange, like how many women does it take?” McGowan said. “We’re at over 100 on the list … We keep adding to it. I would probably estimate like there’s got to be over 1,000, 2,000, because this is a lifelong career of rape for this man.”
However, the Brave author (throughout the book, out on Tuesday, McGowan never uses Weinstein’s name, instead referring to him as “the Monster” or “Studio Head”) isn’t holding Weinstein solely accountable for his actions. “For me he’s a sick person. He’s a sick mind, but what about all the others?” she explained on GMA. “There were so many. The machinery set up in every country he would go to. For the handlers to hand him the victims, from starting with the agents and managers.”
She added: “When I say it’s a complicity machine, it is.”
