Over six months after the first wave of bombshell allegations of rape, sexual assault, and harassment were made against Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced mogul turned himself for arrest in New York City Friday morning. He has been charged with first-degree rape and third-degree rape in one case and first-degree criminal sex act in another; he has since posted $1 million bail and agreed to wear a monitoring device. Furthermore, his lawyer says his client intends to plead not guilty.
Since October 2017, more than 80 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Lupita Nyong’o, and Ashley Judd.
Rose McGowan has been one of the most vocal of Harvey’s victims; she has accused him of raping her at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Today, McGowan went on Megyn Kelly Today to talk about how this new development affected her.
“I actually didn’t believe this day would come,” McGowan told Kelly. “This is a big strike into the heart of abuse of power, and it shows people worldwide—which is what I was hoping the whole time—that this cannot, and will not, stand.”
“The man who pinned me down had handcuffs on him today,” she said triumphantly at another point in the interview.
“The man who pinned me down had handcuffs on him today." @rosemcgowan on Harvey Weinstein #MegynTODAY pic.twitter.com/qJydUotPpL
— Megyn Kelly TODAY (@MegynTODAY) May 25, 2018
Kelly spoke about the need to focus on the effect that predators like Weinstein and the system in place to protect them have on the victims. “These women’s lives have been changes forever as a result of what he did,” Kelly said, and added that it’s “offensive” when the conversation quickly shifts "to how hard it has been on the men” without even spending a minute on the women.
“They’re criminals, and if they were poor men, they would go to jail,” Rose agreed.
McGowan was not the only woman in Hollywood to breathe a sigh of relief when they saw Weinstein turning himself into authorities. Some of these people included Asia Argento, who recently gave a fiery speech at the closing of the Cannes Film Festival in which she mentioned when Weinstein raped her at that same festival in 1993; Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker journalist who investigated Weinstein in a series of articles; Jodi Kantor, the New York Times journalist who, together with Megan Twohey, broke the original Weinstein story in October 2017; and Annabella Sciorra, an actress who accused Weinstein of rape.
