Rose McGowan sat down for an intimate discussion with Ronan Farrow and guests at The 92Y in New York City on Thursday night.
The actress, 44, and Farrow spoke for just over 90 minutes about a variety of subjects from McGowan’s early years and her 1997 sexual assault at the Sundance Film Festival to a previously undisclosed rape that happened some time around 1989.
And while McGowan would not name the man, she did give some big clues about the identity of this person and made it clear that she planned to identify him at some point in the future.
McGowan also said that she did not even realize that she had been a victim of molestation until two weeks after her own story gained national prominence and made he rethink the events which had occurred two decades prior.
Partners: Rose McGowan spoke about her new memoir Brave with Ronan Farrow on Thursday night at The 92Y in New York City
‘You told me that even long before the Harvey Weinstein incident … there was a statutory rape by a prominent man in Hollywood,’ said Farrow about 30 minutes into the talk.
‘Yes, I and I didn’t process that actually until…’ McGowan then became silent as a a few audible gasps could be heard in the audience.
‘I’ll get to him,’ she told the crowd.
Farrow asked: ‘Is that a story you’re ready to tell right now or in general?’
McGowan quickly responded: ‘In general? Sure. Right now in this moment? I’ve had a big day. I have only had a banana. I have been busy I’m sorry.’
She then noted: ‘You know, it will make this night very spectacular.’
McGowan then began to say something but paused after only two words and shared some details of her story, leaving out identifying details while giving people a good idea.
‘But let me tell you he worked for my rapist and won Oscars. Let me tell you this man picked me up when I was 15 years old I have looked like,’ said McGowan, who went on to stress how very much her age she looked at the time.
‘And you know so this man he was very famous,’ explained McGowan.
McGowan appears in the 1992 film Encino Man, which she would have shot three years after her rape at 15
‘And she did tell me the name of this person which obviously I would not say without your being ready for that,’ Farrow told the audience.
He later noted: ‘Rose speaks when she ‘s ready.’
After both McGowan Farrow acknowledged that this was a good thing, she gave a few more details.
‘I think you know, when he took me home after he met me and he showed me a softcore porn movie he’d made for Showtime under a different name of course that’s when I learned what nam-myoho-renge-kyo was because it was involved with this softcore porn,’ said Rose, referring to the Buddhist pracytice.
‘And then he had sex with me and then he left me next to Cafe Tropicale in Silverlake standing on a street corner.’
Farrow then made a point of once again stating: ‘You’re 15.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said McGowan.
‘But I’d always found him attractive, well not always that day. I in my mind, playing it back, I’d always felt like I had been attracted to him so I always filed it away under a sexual experience.’
And now she is processing it, so at some point she might be ready to share