Harvey Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan has Twitter account suspended
Rose McGowan has been one of the most vocal Harvey Weinstein accusers. Photo: Getty
Actress Rose McGowan says Twitter suspended her account after she accused Ben Affleck of lying over his prior knowledge of producer Harvey Weinstein’s predatory sexual behaviour.
McGowan responded to Affleck’s claim this week that sexual assault allegations against Weinstein made him “sick” by accusing her former co-star of knowing about the producer’s behaviour for years.
“Goddamnit! I told him to stop doing that,” McGowan claimed Affleck said to her after it emerged she’d been a victim of Weinstein back in 1997. She added in her tweet about Affleck: “You lie.”
In another tweet she was even more blunt, telling Affleck to “f— off.” Within hours, McGowan’s Twitter account had been frozen.
She immediately took to Instagram to denounce the freeze: “TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE,” McGowan wrote.
She included a message from Twitter saying she would only be able to send direct messages from her account unless she deleted tweets that violated Twitter rules.
A post shared by Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) on
It wasn’t immediately clear what had caused the suspension, prompting a series of critical tweets from supporters of McGowan.
Actress Jessica Chastain asked Twitter to “let us know which of these rules” McGowan broke, while Jamie Lee Curtis wrote: “You allow Twitter freedom to our president but you silence a woman speaking out about sexual harassment.”
The social media platform quickly moved to reinstate McGowan’s privileges, claiming the freeze was because one of her tweets included a private phone number.
“We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices,” Twitter said in a statement.
McGowan reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in 1997 following an incident in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival, The New York Times revealed this week.
McGowan has since criticised other major Hollywood figures for failing to confront Weinstein, at one point tweeting: “You all knew.”
McGowan accused Affleck (with Weinstein (C) and Matt Damon) of lying. Photo: Getty
McGowan co-starred with Affleck in the comedy “Going All the Way,” which was shown at the 1997 Sundance festival, and again in “Phantoms”, which was released a year later.
Meanwhile, actor and screenwriter Seth MacFarlane has explained a joke he made against Weinstein during a 2013 Oscars lead-up ceremony “came from a place of loathing and anger.”
As he and actress Emma Stone revealed the Best Supporting Actress nominations that year, MacFarlane joked: “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”
MacFarlane has now revealed the joke stemmed from “Ted” actress Jessica Barth telling him privately that she had been victimized by Weinstein.
Her account of the producer demanding a naked massage became public in a New Yorker story published this week.
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