The 'Charmed' alum reveals she was offered a large sum of money in exchange for her silence about Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct, but she turned it down a day before New York Times exposed it.
- Oct 30, 2017
AceShowbiz - Harvey Weinstein tried to silence Rose McGowan about his alleged sexual misconduct with $1 million. The actress reveals in a new interview with the New York Times that someone close to Weinstein offered her a large sum of money in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement.
McGowan had initially reached a $100,000 settlement with the disgraced movie mogul after a 1997 hotel room encounter during the Sundance Film Festival. She later realized that her settlement did not include a confidentiality clause.
McGowan told the Times, "I had all these people I’m paying telling me to take it so that I could fund my art." She countered the offer with a $6 million ask, but then told her lawyer to ultimately pull the offer, a day before the Times published the article that exposed "Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein."
"I figured I could probably have gotten him up to three [million dollars]," she continued. "But I was like - ew, gross, you're disgusting, I don't want your money, that would make me feel disgusting."
McGowan also detailed the 1997 encounter with Weinstein. She said they had an appointment at the restaurant in his hotel. When she arrived, the maitre d' told her to meet Weinstein upstairs in his suite, where she remembers passing by two male assistants who she said "wouldn't look me in the eye."
She sat on a couch and Weinstein sat in a separate chair during a brief business meeting. After that, he told her the room had a hot tub. "And then what happened, happened," she said. "Suffice it to say a door opened and my life changed."
The "Charm" alum said that she had to attend a press event after that, where he fought back tears. She told Ben Affleck and her then-manager, Jill Messick, what had happened. She said that at the time she was made to feel as though filing criminal charges against Weisntein would have been hopeless as she was told, "You're an actress, you've done a sex scene, you're done."
Admitting that she still feels rage associated with the experience, she added, "I'll tell you what I don't feel anymore. Despair."
