Streep claims she didn’t know of Weinstein’s misconduct

MERYL STREEP has said Harvey Weinstein ensured she was unaware of his sexual misconduct after Rose Mcgowan accused her of being willingly silent.

Over the weekend Ms Mcgowan, who claims she was raped by Mr Weinstein in the Nineties, lambasted Ms Streep and other women who have reportedly planned to wear black to the Golden Globes ceremony and other awards shows as a sign of protest against sexual assault in Hollywood.

Ms Mcgowan accused these established actresses of “happily working” for Mr Weinstein, adding: “YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real chance [sic]. I despise your hypocrisy.”

Ms Streep has since said that Mr Weinstein made sure she did not know about his behaviour and that she had “sat by that phone all day” waiting to hear from Ms Mcgowan after making sure she had Streep’s home number.

Ms Streep’s representative gave a lengthy statement to The Huffington Post, parts of which read: “I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening.

“HW was not a filmmaker; he was often a producer, primarily a marketer of films made by other people – some of them great, some not. But not every actor, actress and director who made films that HW distributed knew he abused women, or that he raped Rose in the Nineties, other women before and others after, until they told us. We did not know that women’s silence was purchased by him and his enablers.

“HW needed us not to know this, because our association with him bought him credibility, an ability to lure young, aspiring women into circumstances where they would be hurt.”

Ms Streep continued, saying that she wanted to speak to Ms Mcgowan about the incident: “Rose assumed and broadcast something untrue about me, and I wanted to let her know the truth. Through friends who know her, I got my home phone number to her the minute I read the headlines. I sat by that phone all day yesterday and this morning, hoping to express both my deep respect for her and others’ bravery in exposing the monsters among us, and my sympathy for the untold, ongoing pain she suffers.”