Rose McGowan Details Harvey Weinstein Alleged Rape to ‘GMA’

Rose McGowan sat down with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America Tuesday to detail the alleged Harvey Weinstein rape at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, claiming many in the industry knew about his predatory ways.

“Everybody knew,” McGowan said while promoting her new memoir, Brave.

The 44-year-old actress said that she believes there are far more Weinstein victims than those that have come forward. “I would probably estimate there’s got to be over a thousand [victims], maybe 2,000 because this is a lifelong career of rape for this man,” she said.

“The machinery was set up in every country he would go to for the handlers to hand him the victims, starting with the agents and managers,” McGowan said.

She also tried to explain why meeting in a hotel room for an audition or business meeting isn’t unheard of in the entertainment industry, saying oftentimes the meeting will take place in a penthouse or presidential suite.

“One of the things people don’t understand about the hotel room specifically is people think it’s like you open the door and there is a bed. These are people with the entire presidential suite,” McGowan said. “That means it’s the entire top floor of a hotel. Usually three offices, and so it was not unusual, I’ve auditioned in many hotel rooms, the director comes and sits and that’s how it goes.”

Referencing the alleged rape, McGowan described the experience as a whole.

“A lot of victims and survivors will say they detach, you know, and you really do,” she told Roberts. “You float up above your body because you’re trying to figure out — my brain was literally, when he grabbed me, I was thinking: ‘Oh, I hope I still have lipstick on for the camera.’ So your brain is in another place and all of the sudden your body is like what, what, what.”

She then added of the assault: “This is not what I expected at 10:00 in the morning.”

Soon after the assault took place is when McGowan claims she told Ben Affleck, her co-star in Phantoms, about the attack.

“I looked at him and I must have had tears in my eyes because I remember shaking and I said, ‘I just came from a meeting with him’ and I said his name and he goes, that’s when he said, ‘Goddamn it I told him to stop doing that,’” McGowan said.

McGowan writes in Brave that she had an appointment with Weinstein on the day of her assault, arriving at the designated hotel to learn her breakfast meeting had been moved to his hotel suite.

Once she got to the suite, she claims that Weinstein tore off her clothing, made her sit on the edge of the Jacuzzi in his suite and proceeded to perform oral sex on the actress while masturbating himself to completion.

“Mr. Weinstein denies Ms. McGowan’s allegations of non-consensual sexual contact,” said Weinstein’s rep in a statement. “Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”

Soon after this alleged assault, McGowan received a $100,000 settlement from the disgraced mogul.