Updated | Harvey Weinstein may be out in Hollywood, but for Rose McGowan fear of the disgraced producer lives on.
The 44-year-old actress sat down with journalist Ronan Farrow at New York City's 92Y on Thursday evening for an emotional 90-minute conversation about abuse, recovery and the alleged rapist she helped expose. But despite Weinstein's fall from grace, McGowan told Farrow she still lives every day in fear.
"What are you scared of, Rose?" Farrow asked. Without missing a beat, McGowan replied, "Assassination." (The answer drew some uncertain laughs from a few audience members, a common reaction throughout the evening.)
"You really think that you could be killed?" Farrow pressed. "Someone laughed, but I know you're not joking."
McGowan turned to address the crowd directly, leaning forward in her chair. "I don't care what you think. I know my life, and I know my reality, and I know that people like me get killed."
Later in the interview, Farrow pressed again. "You believe that Harvey Weinstein is after you in an ongoing way?"
"Yes," McGowan replied.
"In what way?"
"Someone was just offered $100,000 to tell him what hotel room I was in."
McGowan, who publicly accused Weinstein of rape in October, has a basis for her fears. As Farrow has reported, Weinstein hired private investigators—including former members of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency—to track down accusers and journalists. One investigator from Black Cube, a corporate intelligence agency run by mostly ex-Mossad, met with McGowan under the pretense of being a women's rights advocate, while secretly recording the meetings.
Now, McGowan told Farrow, she's still being tracked by Weinstein's people. "Who else cares? Who else is going to stalk me this long?" Farrow replied that he could not comment on "ongoing" reporting.
The Charmed actress has been all over New York recently, promoting her new memoir Brave and her E! documentary series Citizen Rose. It hasn't been the smoothest publicity tour.
On Wednesday, McGowan got into an altercation with a trans woman during a reading at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. An audience member stood up and, according to Variety, demanded McGowan address controversial comments she made on RuPaul's podcast in July 2017. The conversation devolved into a shouting match between the two, and the audience member was eventually escorted out by security.
McGowan discussed the encounter with Farrow on Thursday: "There was a plant last night. I had my first book reading. It was definitely a fake plant that got up and started screaming at me."
The actress implied, but never directly accused, that Weinstein was the person to send someone to disrupt the reading. But in a statement provided to Newsweek, the producer's PR firm, Sitrick And Company, responded to McGowan's assertions that he has hired people to follow her.
"That's absolutely 100 percent false. No one is monitoring her whereabouts," publicist Holly K. Baird said in an email. "It's unfortunate that she is choosing to marginalize a community that is fighting to have their voice heard by claiming that the individual was a 'plant' of my client. It's simply untrue and disrespectful to the transgender community."
McGowan also discussed a new statement from Weinstein, released by his attorney, in which he denied allegations of sexual assault. "As a general matter, Harvey Weinstein and his attorneys have refrained from publicly criticizing any of the women who have made allegations of sexual assault against Mr. Weinstein despite a wealth of evidence that would demonstrate the patent falsity of these claims," the statement read.
McGowan said the statement felt "violent" and "degrading" to her. "I don't know what it's like to get to face down my attacker in court, but I do know that they lie."
Near the end of the night, she addressed her recent arrest on drug possession. Police found cocaine in her wallet last January, which she claims was planted.
"I hate that handcuffs have been on me and not him," she said, referencing Weinstein, with tears in her eyes. Throughout the talk, as well as in her book and documentary series, McGowan refused to address Weinstein by name, referring to him only by pronouns or "the monster."
But the point McGowan hammered home again and again was her disinterest in whether or not the public believes her. "I don't care what people say. Please get that straight. I can't, because it will kill me."
Update: Story has been updated to include a statement from Harvey Weinstein's publicity team.
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