In Weinstein saga, McGowan emerges as powerful voice

Rose McGowan

NEW YORK: In a flurry of unrestrained tweets and with the “RoseArmy” at her back, Rose McGowan has emerged a kind of whistleblowing avenger in the Harvey Weinstein saga, leaving a scorched path behind her across social media.
After long referencing a past incident with Weinstein, McGowan on Thursday for the first time said it outright: “HW raped me,” the actress wrote, apparently referring to the embattled former Weinstein Co. co-chairman. Weinstein representative Sallie Hofmeister said “any allegations of non-consensual contact are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”
The Hollywood Reporter said McGowan confirmed it was Weinstein she was referring to; her representative did not respond to a message seeking comment.
McGowan’s accusation was the latest development in the fast-unraveling saga surrounding Weinstein.
Police detectives in New York and London said Thursday that they are taking a fresh look into sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein now that some 30 women have accused the Hollywood film producer of inappropriate conduct. Hachette Book Group, one of the country’s top publishers, announced it has pulled the plug on its Weinstein Books imprint.
But it has been McGowan who spoke loudest Thursday, even though she spent half the day suspended by Twitter.
McGowan last year said that she had been raped by a “studio head.” The New Yorker expose that ran Tuesday reported that Weinstein had allegedly sexually assaulted three women, though the third woman was unnamed. The New York Times earlier reported that Weinstein paid a financial settlement of $100,000 to McGowan in 1997 after an episode at a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
That settlement included provisions about speaking about the case in the future, but McGowan has increasingly refused to mince words. “It is on,” tweeted McGowan before launching into a series of tweets directed at Amazon head Jeff Bezos.
“I told the head of your studio that HW raped me,” said McGowan in tweets directed to Bezos. “Over and Over I said it. He said it had not been proven. I said I was the proof.”
Amazon did not return a message seeking comment.
Authorities are also seeking evidence against Weinstein, who in a video posted by celebrity website TMZ was shown Wednesday outside a Los Angeles home telling the paparazzi he is “not doing OK” and that he “needs help.”
New York Police Department spokesman Peter Donald said Thursday that investigators are reviewing police files to see if anyone else reported being assaulted or harassed by him.
So far, no filed complaints have been found, he said, other than one well-known case that prompted an investigation in 2015, but authorities are encouraging anyone with information on Weinstein to contact the department.
London police were also looking into a claim it had received from the Merseyside force in northwest England, British media reported Thursday. Merseyside police said the allegation was made a day earlier and concerned “an alleged sexual assault in the London area in the 1980s.”
Some 30 women — including actresses Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow — have spoken out recently to say Weinstein had sexually harassed or sexually assaulted them. Weinstein was fired Sunday by The Weinstein Co., a studio he co-founded with his brother.
Some of the allegations involved conduct at hotels in Beverly Hills, but police there did not return calls on whether they were investigating any possible crimes. The Los Angeles Police Department has no open investigations.
Detectives in the NYPD’s special victims unit were instructed to identify and speak with any potential victims, including the women who spoke about their encounters with Weinstein in the New Yorker article, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The Summit County Sheriff’s Office, which shares a records system with Park City Police, had no reports or calls involving Weinstein or McGowan in the past 30 years, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Andrew Wright said.
In The New Yorker expose, a former actress, Lucia Evans, said Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex in 2004 when she was a college student. A second woman, actress and filmmaker Asia Argento, told the magazine that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 1997 at a hotel in France.
Under New York law, making someone engage in oral sex by physical force or the threat of it is a first-degree criminal sexual act. There is no legal time limit for bringing charges.