Actress and activist Rose McGowan joined California Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder on the campaign trail on Sunday, accusing incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife of attempts to silence McGowan over allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
McGowen said that six months before McGowan went public with charges of sexual misconduct against the disgraced Hollywood producer, Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel, tried to offer hush money to the actress to remain quiet in 2017.
“I finally came to a point where I am not a Democrat,” McGowan said alongside Elder, “because everyone who has harassed, stalked, and stolen from me in my time in Hollywood has been a Democrat.”
McGowan: "I finally came to a point where I am not a Democrat, because everyone who has harassed, stalked, and stolen from me in my time in Hollywood has been a Democrat."
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) September 12, 2021
McGowan said Siebel tried to offer the actress payments from Weinstein attorney David Boies as a bribe for silent compliance.
“So this woman, I don’t know, some blonde lady name with the last name of the Newsom cold-calls me, and was like, ‘David Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy,’” McGowan said last week in an online interview with podcaster Dave Rubin in the run-up to Sunday’s stump speech. Now the vocal #MeToo activist who said Weinstein assaulted her at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 is urging Californians to vote for Elder.
“Do I agree with him on every issue? No. So what?” she said of Elder’s platform. “He is the better candidate. He is the better man.”
McGowan also tweeted what was allegedly an email from Siebel to a Weinstein victims group, retyped onto an orange background with names redacted, in which Siebel apparently explained her comments to McGowan.
“I want us to heal as a culture and so I asked Rose, ‘what if anything Boies could do for her that would help her to heal,’” Siebel allegedly wrote.
https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1437185918499123202?s=20
Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison last year for charges of rape and sexual abuse.
A Siebel spokesman denied McGowan’s explosive claims as “complete fabrication” in a statement to Business Insider.
“It’s disappointing but not surprising to see political opponents launch these false attacks just days before the election. Their limited correspondence has been strictly as fellow survivors of sexual assault and in Jennifer’s former capacity leading the Representation Project, an organization that fights limiting gender stereotypes and norms,” said the published statement.
Newsom faces a recall challenge on Tuesday. Polls that were once slightly against his favor in the RealClearPolitics aggregate now show the Democrat governor with a comfortable nearly-16-point lead.
