In a live interview between actress and author Rose McGowan and journalist Ronan Farrow in Manhattan last night, the Charmed star — who previously accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her in 1997 — said that she was preyed on by another “very famous” in Hollywood when she was 15, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Over the course of the conversation, Farrow asked McGowan about another alleged predator she mentioned while Farrow was interviewing her for his New Yorker articles on Weinstein’s alleged widespread sexual misconduct. McGowan said that she wasn’t ready to go on record and out the “prominent” director by name, but she did disclose that he “won Oscars” and “worked for my rapist [Weinstein].”
“This man picked me up when I was 15 years old,” McGowan said. “He took me home after he met me and he showed me a soft porn movie he had made for Showtime, under a different name. And then he had sex with me.”
McGowan said that after the encounter was over, he left her “standing on a street corner” in Silver Lake.
The actress told Farrow that she wasn’t ready to name her alleged abuser because she had only come to terms with that had happened recently. From THR:
“In my mind, playing it back, I had been attracted to him, so I always filed it away as a sexual experience.” She then said to Farrow, “I don’t have a normal trajectory, I don’t know if you do either.” The son of Woody Allen related to her, saying, “I do not.”
McGowan said that until she started processing what had happened last fall, she always thought of the situation as, “That creep did this to a 15-year-old.” Adding, “It was not until two weeks after your story broke — our story, our world’s story — that I was in bed and I started saying, ‘Oh my god. I think that’s molestation.'”
Farrow said that McGowan disclosed the name of this director to her in off the record conversations in the course of reporting the Weinstein story, but would leave it to her to name him when she’s ready.
On Tuesday, Weinstein’s lawyers issued a statement refuting McGowan’s accusations, which can be read here.
