Powerful moments in McGowan’s ‘Brave’
Even without naming names, Rose McGowan still manages to set Hollywood on fire in her new book, Brave (HarperOne, on sale now).
The most outspoken of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers warns her audience: “This is not a tell-all. This is a tell-itlike-it-is.”
McGowan’s formative years are eye-opening and, frankly, awful. The actress was born into a cult known as Children of God and raised in Italy. Once her family relocated to the United States, McGowan writes that her father became increasingly verbally abusive and her mother was often absent. McGowan emancipated herself from her parents when she was 15.
In Brave, McGowan, 44, does a lot of scalding truth-telling. Here are four must-read moments:
The Weinstein incident. McGowan first met Weinstein at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of her 1997 film, Going All the Way. The movie mogul sat behind her, she writes, and she witnessed her manager (a woman) nodding at Weinstein after her topless scene. The next day McGowan was sent to his hotel room, where she says the two talked about film and her acting goals.
But as he walked her out, McGowan writes, he pushed her into his bathroom. “My clothes are getting peeled off me,” she writes. “I back into the wall, but there’s nowhere to go.” As she cried, Weinstein performed oral sex on her while masturbating, she says.
After the alleged assault, McGowan was driven to a photo op with her Phantoms co-star, and shaking, she told the actor on the cast where she had been. The actor, who is not named, replied: “(Expletive) it. I told him to stop doing that.” Though the co-star’s name is not disclosed in the book, McGowan has revealed on Twitter that it was Ben Affleck.
To date, 84 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein. He has repeatedly denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
The New York Times reported last fall that Weinstein reached a settlement for $100,000 with McGowan, then 23, after the Sundance Film Festival incident. Weinstein said the settlement was “not to be construed as an admission” but a way to avoid court. After the Times and New Yorker stories on Weinstein last fall, McGowan claimed “HW raped me” in a series of
tweets to Amazon head Jeff Bezos.
Women in Hollywood. The lack of respect for women permeates all aspect of show business, as McGowan describes it. During her five years on Charmed, “only one female director was hired in the entire five years I was there, and the crew sank her,” she says. “The crew would snicker in disrespect when she would direct them.”
The naked dress. McGowan describes her relationship with Marilyn Manson as a brief time of idyllic peace in her life and calls the musician deeply misunderstood.
McGowan writes that by the time she attended the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards with her rocker beau, she decided to reclaim her body in the wake of the alleged Weinstein assault. “I thought, You know what? You want to objectify me? You want to see a body? This is what you want? All you media men, all you photographers, you vultures, this is what you want to see?
I’ll show you a body.’ And so I did. ... It was, of course, misinterpreted and sexualized, which was the exact opposite point I was trying to make.”
Meeting Robert Rodriguez. McGowan calls the night she met the director (she refers to him as “RR”) in Cannes one of the moments she regrets most in her life. He told her he was married, unhappily. “I believed him,” she says. They fell for each other quickly, and he promised to be her savior in Hollywood. But Rodriguez grew to be jealous, manipulative and controlling, she writes.
On the set of Planet Terror, Rodriguez threatened to give McGowan’s role to Jessica Alba when she lost too much weight from stress. He ultimately sold their film to Weinstein. “I can’t tell you what it was like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted me and scarred me for life,” she writes.
Ultimately, McGowan says, “being brave doesn’t mean you are not scared, it just means you do the scary thing anyway. Push back at the system where you see injustice happening See how women are treated in life and stand up for us. ... Be better. Think different. I know you can.”