Rose McGowan has cancelled her upcoming public appearances for the launch of her memoir, Brave.
The author and actress was involved in a heated exchange with a transgender woman during a book reading at a Barnes and Noble store in New York this week.
McGowan later tweeted, “I was VERBALLY ASSAULTED for two full minutes @BNBuzz by an actor paid to verbally assault a woman who has been terrorised by your system.
“And no ONE in that room did anything. And everyone from my publicists, assistants, managers and every person sitting in their chairs frozen by their weakness, a weakness called COMPLICITY. The truth is you all failed me. Again. And again. And again.”
It was later revealed the heckler was Andi Dier, a transgender woman who allegedly has several sexual assault claims against her.
The verbal exchange began when Dier asked McGowan about some comments she made on RuPaul’s What’s the Tee? podcast in July last year.
“Trans women are dying and you said that we, as trans women, are not like regular women,” she said.
“We get raped more often. We go through domestic violence more often. There was a trans woman killed here a few blocks (away). I have been followed home —”
McGowan then interrupted.
“Hold on. So am I. We are the same. My point was, we are the same. There’s an entire (channel) called ID (Investigation Discovery), a network dedicated to women getting abused, murdered, sexualised, violated, and you’re a part of that, too, sister. It’s the same,” she said.
Dier then asked McGowan what she had done for transgender women and McGowan shot back, “What have you done for women?”.
The exchange soon turned into a screaming match and the woman was escorted from the building while chanting “CIS white feminist terrorism” over and over again.
You can watch the full exchange here:
“I do not subscribe to your rules. I do not subscribe to your language. You will not put labels on me or anybody. Step the f**k back. What I do for the f**king world and you should be f**king grateful. Shut the f**k up,” McGowan yelled out after the woman.
Later during a panel discussion with Ronan Farrow in New York, McGowan said she believes the woman was a plant from Harvey Weinstein’s camp.
“There was a plant last night at my first book reading… definitely a paid plant that got up and was screaming at me,” she told the crowd.
“I saw. I had people who were watching the exchange.”
She also said she was scared of being assassinated.
“I know my life and I know my reality, and I know that people like me get killed.”
One of Weinstein’s representatives has vehemently denied the allegations, telling the New York Post the claims were, “absolutely, 100 per cent false. No one is monitoring her whereabouts”.
“It’s unfortunate that she is choosing to marginalise a community that is fighting to have their voice heard by claiming that the individual was a ‘plant’ of my client. It’s simply untrue and disrespectful to the transgender community,” the rep added.
Listen to the full episode of No Filter with Vanessa Grigoriadis here:
Top Comments
McGowan is getting absolutely SLAMMED by people for this exchange, but lashing out at someone who is here specifically to heckle you is not a crime. Also, in one breath it's "trans women are WOMEN" and in the next breath it's "yeah but what have you done for TRANS women". My thoughts are trans women are women. So if there are women working to improve the lives of women, it includes trans women - becasue trans women are women!? Am I wrong?
Rose McGowan is a total narcissist. Her experiences with sexual assault and harassment sadden me, but her particular brand of feminism is toxic. She has manipulated the #metoo movement to exclude trans women and blocked the progression of a more nuanced discussion.
There's no doubt that all women suffer at the hands of misogyny and gendered violence, but transgender women are statistically more vulnerable and susceptible. It's so dismissive and ignorant to lump the experiences of trans women in with the experiences of cisgender women. We need to have a much more nuanced conversation about how we can help our trans sisters. When people like Rose McGowan make reductive statements like these, then play victim when called out, we are ignoring trans women and dismissing their, very real, problems.