My Body And Spirit Were Stolen

After two decades of silence, Rose McGowan—one of the leading voices against Harvey Weinstein—reveals new details of her story in a memoir, BRAVE

- Kayla Webley Adler

For 20 years, Rose McGowan was silenced, harassed, and maligned—this year, she finally felt what it was like to be believed. In October, a New York Times story unleashed a torrent of accusations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein (the total number of accusers is now 90; Weinstein denies any allegations of “nonconsensual sex”). Included in the report was a mention that, in 1997, McGowan, then a 23-year-old actress fresh off a role in Scream, reached a $100,000 settlement after “an episode” in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. McGowan has never publicly recounted the details of the assault (though she tweeted, “HW raped me” a week after that NYT story was published), until now. In January, McGowan published BRAVE (HarperOne), a powerful story of how she reclaimed her life that’s half memoir, half instruction manual for dismantling the patriarchy. Here, she discusses what she’s endured, how her childhood in the Children of God cult prepared her to take on Hollywood, and the larger #MeToo movement she helped inspire. MARIE CLAIRE: WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE BOOK?

ROSE MCGOWAN: I compare [Children of God] to the cult of Hollywood. The cult I grew up in is male dominated, male serving, and [women were there to serve men sexually], and I can say the same thing about Hollywood. BRAVE starts with my escaping [Children of God as a child], and then having seven wild years when I was free of that, before I got absorbed into another cult: Hollywood. It’s a story of a lot of trauma, but also a lot of perseverance. It’s a memoir manifesto, and what that means is, it interweaves my philosophies throughout. I speak directly to the reader often, and it’s very different than what people are expecting. Ultimately, it’s about teaching people how to be brave in their own lives.