Rose McGowan Is Suing Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein is a looooooong way out of the legal woods (and with his driving record, every tree in said woods are no doubt bracing themselves for impact). Harvey’s lawyers aren’t taking a break any time soon, but they just got even busier, because Rose McGowan has filed a lawsuit against him. Except she’s not suing him for being an alleged monster. It’s more like she’s accusing him of being a smear campaign-running puppet master.

TMZ says that Rose has filed a lawsuit against Harvey and two of his former attorneys, Lisa Bloom and David Boies. According to her lawsuit:

“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.”

Which takes us all the way back to 2016, before Harvey was exposed in October 2017 by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohe of The New York Times. Rose claims that she was working on her memoir titled Brave (which Rose eventually released in 2018). She claims she had planned to include a story about Harvey allegedly raping her at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. Instead, she ended up tweeting about the alleged incident in 2016, without naming her assaulter. Rose claims that when Harvey heard that he was being included in Rose’s book, he sent Lisa and David on a mission to discredit Rose at every turn. Shortly after Harvey was exposed two years ago, Rose said that Harvey gave her $100,000 to keep quiet. She also said that Lisa contacted Rose and offered her up to $6 million to erase the “Harvey is a rapist” part from her memoir and say some nice stuff about him. Rose declined.

Then last month, Rose responded to a passage in Jodi and Megan’s book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, in which it’s alleged in a memo sent from Lisa to Harvey that she offered to launch a smear campaign against Rose.

Rose claims in her lawsuit that Harvey made it a priority to have his “fixers” ensure that her story never saw the light of day, and that if it did, it would be met with stories about how unreliable or crazy she is. And if that didn’t work, Rose alleges in her lawsuit that Harvey hatched a diabolical plan to steal her unpublished book and wreck her reputation.

McGowan then alleges Weinstein’s lawyers – in conjunction with the international spy agency, Black Cube – worked together and “tried to steal McGowan’s unpublished book” and attempted to buy her silence. She claims that Weinstein’s plans were that if they couldn’t stop her, they’d do everything in their power to ruin her reputation.

That might explain that old email Harvey just so happened to find from Ben Affleck, in which Ben said he had no knowledge of a story about Rose being allegedly raped by Harvey (despite Rose claiming to have told Ben after it happened). And remember when a wallet allegedly belonging to Rose was found after she disembarked a flight in Virginia, and she was later arrested and indicted on a felony cocaine possession? Rose claimed then that she believed it was a set-up orchestrated by Harvey, and her lawsuit implies much of the same.

She claims, in docs, her lawyer, Jose Baez, advised her to drop that defense and instead plead no contest, which she did. McGowan says it’s odd that 9 days after she pled no contest, Baez then signed up as Weinstein’s criminal defense attorneys.

Ronan Farrow appeared on The View last week to promote his new book, Catch and Kill, and he spoke about how Harvey allegedly sent Black Cube after Ronan in an attempt to intimidate him. He also alleged that a secret undercover operative from Black Cube was sent to infiltrate Rose McGowan’s life with the intention of obtaining recordings for Harvey.

Rose is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. And it wasn’t long before the other side has released statement. A rep for Lisa Bloom tells TMZ:

“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.”

Harvey’s lawyer also chimed in, saying:

“Once and for all, Rose McGowan will be shown to be what she is; a publicity seeker looking for money. From the moment she sought a multi-million 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.”

Harvey must not be familiar with Jodi and Megan’s book, in which they allege Lisa was the one who offered that money to Rose. Harvey’s going to have to work pretty hard to demonstrate that Rose was the one sniffing around for $6 million. You know what, I bet he’s already got an intern from Black Cube pulling on a buzz cut wiglet saying the words, “My name is Rose McGowan, the year is 2017, and I’d like some money” in front of a video camera.

Pic: Wenn.com