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Harvey Weinstein offered Rose McGowan $1m for Her Silence

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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Actress Rose McGowan claims Harvey Weinstein offered her $1 million (£760,000) to keep quiet.

McGowan, who has accused Weinstein of raping her in a hotel room in 1997, revealed to the New York Times that she had received the offer in late September from a person connected to the disgraced businessman, weeks before several claims of sexual assault against the disgraced tycoon surfaced.

The actress claims that she previously agreed to a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in 1997 about the event, but this summer she learned that the contract lacked a confidentiality clause.

McGowan claims she took the offer into consideration because of her need for money while writing her forthcoming book, Brave. McGowan, who is no longer performing, feels that her career suffered as a result of her relationship with Weinstein.

“I had all these people I’m paying telling me to take it so that I could fund my art,” she stated.

According to a story that appeared in the New York Times on October 5th, McGowan was one of eight women who allegedly reached undisclosed settlements with Weinstein. Following that article, the New Yorker conducted a supplementary investigation and compiled 13 more claims of the producer’s alleged sexual assault or harassment. Since then, 82 women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault or harassment by the producer. Most recently, star Annabella Sciorra has claimed that Weinstein broke into her apartment and sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

An attorney for Weinstein claimed in a statement that the initial New York Times article about her settlement was “saturated with false and defamatory statements” and that “No company ever talks about settlements, and neither does the recipient, so I don’t know how the Times came to this conclusion, but it is pure conjecture; the reporters have made assumptions.”

While McGowan remained silent on the New York Times’ first investigation into Weinstein’s behavior, she later claimed that he was the person who allegedly assaulted her. The actor’s initial statements on Weinstein were made in a speech she gave on October 27 at the Women’s Convention in Detroit. “I have been silenced for 20 years. I have been slut-shamed, I have been harassed, I have been maligned, and you know what? I am just like you. What happened to me behind the scenes happens to all of us in this society. It cannot stand and will not stand,” she said.

In her interview with the Times, McGowan also shared her story of the encounter with Weinstein in 1997. The actress, who had most recently starred in The Weinstein Co.’s Scream, had an appointment with Weinstein in the restaurant of his hotel, the Stein Eriksen Lodge, during the annual Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah. She claims the maitre d’ led her upstairs to Weinstein’s suite when she first arrived, through two male employees who “wouldn’t look me in the eye,” and into his room.

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Weinstein allegedly informed McGowan that the suite had a hot tub after their short business meeting. “And then what happened, happened,” she stated. “Suffice it to say a door opened and my life changed.”

She reportedly fought back tears as she left the hotel room and headed to a news conference where she alleges she told Ben Affleck and her former manager Jill Messick about what had transpired. She refused to go into more detail.

McGowan claims that in the months that followed, she was advised that there was no chance of getting a criminal prosecution filed, recalling being told, “You’re an actress, you’ve done a sex scene, you’re done.” Attorney Nick Wechsler told the Times that when Weinstein was asked by a lawyer with McGowan’s allegation, Weinstein said that he was “going to get psychiatric help or some kind of treatment for his sexual behavior.”

After the deal was made, Messick agreed to take a position at Miramax, which was then under Weinstein’s leadership.

The Times interviewed a number of individuals who were acquainted with McGowan at the time to learn how the event affected her future emotionally and professionally, from the roles she chose to her relationship with Marilyn Manson. McGowan reflected on her role in the Dimension Films-distributed movie Grindhouse from 2007, saying: “I was really lost at that point. I was damaged.”

The New York Times has also stated that new information has come to light on charges that initially arose in the 1970s.

In Buffalo, New York, Weinstein promoted concerts before entering the film business. Hope Exiner d’Amore, who had briefly worked for him, informed the newspaper that he had assaulted her at a hotel during this period.

“I told him no,” she stated. “I kept pushing him away. He just wouldn’t listen. He just forced himself on me.”

Actress Cynthia Burr said in a different report from the late 1970s that he attempted to kiss her in an elevator before compelling her to engage in oral s=x with him in a corridor.

“It was just him and me alone,” she explained. “I was fearful I didn’t have the wherewithal to get away.”

“Any allegations of non-consensual s=x are unequivocally denied,” his spokesperson said.

Due to the claims, Weinstein was sacked by his own company, and authorities in New York, Los Angeles, and London are actively looking into him. The producer “unequivocally denies any allegations of non-consensual s=x,” according to a spokesman for him.