Rose McGowan’s claim that Ben Affleck told her, “Goddammit, I told him to stop doing that,” after she told him that Harvey Weinstein had raped her in a hot tub at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival was denied by Affleck in an email sent three months prior to the revelations about the movie mogul that appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker last year.
The email from Affleck, obtained by the Daily Mail, goes some way to explaining McGowan’s hostility toward Affleck.
The Daily Mail alleges that Affleck wrote in an email to Weinstein, with the subject line “Roe McGowan” [sic]: “She never told me nor did I ever infer that she was attacked by anyone. Any accounts to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about anything Rose did or claimed to have done. Accounts otherwise are lies.”
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Affleck’s rep did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment, however the email will pile more pressure on Affleck and may go some way to explain a curt social-media message sent by McGowan in October last year, after Affleck issued a carefully worded statement saying he was “saddened and angry” by the allegations more than five days after the Weinstein scandal broke:
In the resulting social-media exchange, the actress Hilarie Burton accused Affleck of groping her, for which Affleck subsequently apologized.
The Daily Mail also cites an email allegedly sent to Weinstein from Jill Messick, McGowan’s then-manager, whom McGowan has accused of being complicit in covering up Weinstein’s alleged crimes.
“When we met up the following day, she hesitantly told me of her own accord that during the meeting that night before she had gotten into a hot tub with Mr. Weinstein,” wrote Messick, in an email sent to Weinstein that was seen by the Mail.
“She was very clear about the fact that getting into that hot tub was something that she did consensually and that in hindsight it was also something that she regretted having done.”
Despite as many as 100 women coming forward to accuse him of sexual harassment or assault, Weinstein has repeatedly denied allegations of any non-consensual sexual contact. Messick, meanwhile, began working at Weinstein’s Miramax as a VP of development shortly after McGowan entered into a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein.
