Rose McGowan is taking Harvey Weinstein to court.
Rose McGowan is taking Harvey Weinstein to court.
On Wednesday, the 46-year-old actress filed a lawsuit against the former movie mogul and his ex-attorneys, Lisa Bloom and David Boies, as well as private intelligence agency Black Cube. According to multiple reports, McGowan alleges in the lawsuit that Weinstein and his team conspired to suppress her allegation that he raped her at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997, which he has vehemently denied. McGowan claims Weinstein's team tried to steal her book, Brave, when it was still unpublished after learning that she planned to describe the alleged rape in it, and also tried to buy her silence. She claims that when they were unsuccessful, they attempted to undermine her reputation so that nobody would believe her.
"This case is about a diabolical and illegal effort by one of America’s most powerful men and his representatives to silence sexual-assault victims," the lawsuit states, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "And it is about the courageous women and journalists who persisted to reveal the truth."
In a statement to ET on Wednesday, Weinstein’s civil attorney, Phyllis Kupferstein, called the allegations "baseless."
"Once and for all, Rose McGowan will be shown to be what she is; a publicity seeker looking for money,” Kupferstein said. “From the moment she sought a multimillion-dollar payout in return for not making these baseless allegations, which we rejected, we knew that she was waiting for an opportune time to begin this. We will demonstrate that this case has no legal merit."
McGowan went into detail about her alleged incident with Weinstein in Brave, which was published in January 2018. She went public with her allegation after The New York Times reported in October 2017 that Weinstein reached a previously undisclosed settlement with the actress in 1997 "after an episode in a hotel room" during the Sundance Film Festival when she was 23 years old. The publication claimed it viewed legal documents that McGowan received a $100,000 settlement, which was “not to be construed as an admission” by Weinstein, but intended to “avoid litigation and buy peace."
Weinstein denied McGowan's allegation through his attorney.
"Mr. Weinstein denies Rose McGowan’s allegations of non-consensual sexual contact," his attorney said in a statement. "It is erroneous and irresponsible to conflate claims of inappropriate behavior and consensual sexual contact later regretted, with an untrue claim of rape."
Bloom's attorney, Eric George, told ET: "It is inexcusable that Ms. McGowan chose to include my client in her lawsuit. Facts matter. There is simply no credible factual or legal basis for her claims against my client. We look forward to our day in court to set the record straight."
Weinstein has "unequivocally denied" any wrongdoing in regard to all allegations that he had non-consensual sex, and he pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment accusing him of raping a woman in 2013 and performing a forcible sex act on a different woman in 2006. In August, he pleaded not guilty to a new indictment that included two new charges of predatory sexual assault, a development that caused the judge to delay the start of his trial until early next year.
For the latest on the trial, watch the video below:
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