Though director Robert Rodriguez paints himself as a hero who cast his then-girlfriend Rose McGowan in his film Grindhouse to spite Harvey Weinstein, aware that Weinstein had allegedly raped her in 1997, McGowan remembers his intentions differently. Recalling the incident to Vanity Fair in a teaser chapter from her forthcoming memoir, McGowan now accuses Rodriguez of using that information that she told him in confidence to play “mind games” on her during filming. She points to a scene in which Quentin Tarantino, who also admitted that he knew all about Weinstein, terrorizes her. “I was in a backward world,” she writes. “I was losing my grip on sanity.” She remembers that Rodriguez’s ultimate betrayal occurred when he “sold our film to my monster.” (Bob Weinstein’s Dimension Films distributed the double feature.) Rodriguez previously called that sale and going up against Weinstein a “lose-lose” situation that he somewhat regrets.
Saying that she always planned to break her NDA with Weinstein, McGowan will disclose details of Weinstein’s alleged rape in her memoir for the first time, but he won’t be alone in feeling her wrath. She’ll attempt to blow the lid off of Hollywood’s predatory culture, reportedly telling stories that include “molestation by someone on set, exploitation at the hands of directors, complicity from agents and managers, demeaning critiques from the hair, makeup, and style departments, and bashing from the likes of blogger Perez Hilton.” She’s also accusing Weinstein of planting drugs on her after the Women’s March in Washington as retaliation. “They built a motherfucking beast, and they built a motherfucking problem,” she says. “I am that problem to all of them. He represents all of them to me. And that’s why he must be slayed.”
