8 Revelations From Rose McGowan’s Memoir ‘Brave’: Harvey Weinstein, Cult Upbringing and More

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8 Revelations From Rose McGowan’s Memoir ‘Brave’: Harvey Weinstein, Cult Upbringing and More

Rose McGowan will no longer be silenced. In her new memoir, Brave (out now), the actress candidly reflects upon her upbringing and past traumatic experiences. Below, Us Weekly rounds up eight of the biggest revelations from the book.

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She Was Born Into a Cult

McGowan’s parents were living in Italy with the Children of God when she was born in 1973. “Even then I knew none of it was ‘normal,’ whatever normal was,” she writes of the notorious cult allegedly advocating child-adult sex. “I don’t think there really is such a thing as ‘normal,’ but I knew that this was something deeply wrong, something to be avoided at all costs.” Ultimately, McGowan, who also considers Hollywood to be a cult, and her father fled to a small town in Tuscany with his kids and second wife, leaving her mother behind.

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She Tried Acid in 8th Grade

During her “first and only school dance,” one of McGowan’s junior high classmates gave her a tab of acid. “I had no clue what acid was, but I was all in for adventure,” she recalls. “Soon music was pulsating off the rec room walls, and my ears heard every little noise. … My soft young mind was on fire.”

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She Battled an Eating Disorder

McGowan claims she developed an eating disorder during her tumultuous relationship with an ex-boyfriend named William, who she says bought her exercise equipment, fashion magazines and other gifts that destroyed her self-esteem. “I never was able to get below ninety-two pounds. For some reason that was my cutoff point,” she writes. “Because I had read about girls who were eighty-four pounds, I felt like a failure.”

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Her First Love Was Murdered

After splitting from William, McGowan began dating a club owner named Brett Cantor. Their relationship was going strong until he was "stabbed twenty-three times and almost decapitated” one night, she writes. The murder remains unsolved. She writes, “I have been trying for years to remedy that.”

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She and Ex Marilyn Mansion Were Homebodies

McGowan writes that Manson, from whom she called off her years-long engagement in 2001, was a “very misunderstood person.” Though he is known for his dark public persona, the rock star is actually a homebody who enjoyed “painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware from Martha Stewart’s online store,” McGowan writes. “It was a blast, and we were madly in love, and anybody else who thinks differently is wrong. It was a pretty legendary relationship, not just in the media. It was a pretty legendary relationship behind the scenes, too. We had a whole lot of amazing.”

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Filming Her First Movie Was Traumatic

McGowan describes her experience on the set of the 1995 dark comedy The Doom Generation as a “toxic environment,” claiming that a male costar “had taken a bottle of water under my skirt to spray and push onto my privates.” She writes that director Gregg Araki allegedly brushed off the incident, which was “the height of misogyny and victim blaming.” 

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She Was Allegedly Raped by Harvey Weinstein

Throughout the book, McGowan never uses Weinstein’s name, instead referring to him as “the Monster” or “Studio Head.” As she has previously discussed, the actress claims in Brave that the film producer — who she says “reminded me of a melted pineapple” — raped her in his “Jacuzzi room” during the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. In less than a minute, she says, he had undressed her and forced her in the water. “He places his monster face between my legs,” McGowan writes. With tears streaming down her face, she admits she faked an orgasm. “I felt so dirty,” she recalls. “I had been so violated and I was sad to the core of my being.” (Weinstein previously denied any allegations of non-consensual sex.)

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She Regrets Her Part in Robert Rodriguez’s Affair

McGowan dated Rodriguez, who directed her in Planet Terror in 2007, while he was still married to Elizabeth Avellán. “I profoundly regret and publicly apologize for my part in this,” the actress writes. “I carry a deep, deep regret for the pain and heartache I caused.” Like Weinstein, she does not use Rodriguez’s name, instead calling him “RR.” She writes that he “said he was going to be my savior in the film industry” after she was allegedly sexually assaulted, but their relationship was plagued by jealousy. Eventually, Planet Terror was sold to Weinstein, and McGowan and Rodriguez separated. She writes, “I can’t tell you what it’s like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted me and scarred me for life.”