We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - Rose McGowan “Hollywood Was Worse Than The Cult I Escaped”

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Starting point is 00:01:04 Did you witness any of that? How do you go from living with your father to Hollywood? I saw a flyer. He could be an extra in a movie. Then all of a sudden, I'm being sent around the world at film festivals. I see this kind of big pockmirt shadow behind me, and it was this loser in Harvey Weinstein.

Starting point is 00:01:25 Everybody who ever talked about this man, they were like with fear. In hindsight, every detail leading up to that moment, I could see how orchestrated. it was to get me into the position that I was in. These two assistants come out, and they wouldn't look at me. Can I ask, after an assault like that happens, do you feel as if everything is fake?

Starting point is 00:01:41 They calculated that he was thanked more times than God at the Oscars. God, Harvey Weinstein. Because he was their God. This was far worse than the cult I grew up. And then I was 1,000% shut out of that world. My bank account had been wiped out. I didn't know what was happening to me. But what did really help me,

Starting point is 00:02:00 really helped me. My former co-star said, come and do a comic con. They used to wonder for so long, who's on the other side of the screen? And these people, sweet, loving nerds, help me up. Harvey Weinstein is currently serving 16 years in prison. Do you believe justice was served? Hey there, before we get started, I just want to say a huge thank you for being here and watching the show. It's really one of the greatest honors of my career to have these conversations. Can I ask a small favor? Hit the subscribe button, please. It's just one click.

Starting point is 00:02:41 It's completely free, and it helps us grow the community. The more we grow, the bigger the guests we can bring on, and the deeper the conversations we can have. Thank you. Truly, it means a lot. Rose McGowan, we need to talk. Paul Seed? Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:03:04 Thank you. So your name came up. And my boys said, oh, Rose McGowan. Oh, oh, the activist. And that was interesting because for me, you have always been Rose McGowan, the actress. And what I want to unpack is all of that, from actress to activist and even before actress. But what's your impression of that, though? amazing. I've never, labels have never really fit, actress never fit very well for me, although

Starting point is 00:03:41 technically yes. Activist, I sometimes felt that would take away from like people that like have been out there in the streets for a lifetime kind of fighting stuff, but it's fitting. I think it, you know, they can coexist and then on the other side is just me super happy just to exist as as a whole human. My real name is Rosa Arianna. Nice to meet you, Paul C. And there's the duality, you know. And it's, you know, what your kids and you, it's what you said. I mean, it's been a weird ride, man. Yeah. You know what? And even on that point, you're right, because so through my adult life, my entire adult life, I have known of you, right? And it's interesting because I thought I knew you, but clearly knew nothing.

Starting point is 00:04:31 about what was actually happening. And so I think this is going to be an opportunity for me to indulge in fully unpacking and understanding you. Because also I had no idea that, so you were born in Italy. Yeah. So I grew up in a thing called Children of God, but in Italian, Bambini de Dios and in Italy. And at that time, you know, when children of God was labeled a cult,

Starting point is 00:05:01 afterwards. When they went into this, that was not the word for it. There was no word for that, right? And it was just, you know, the end of Vietnam. It was that my father was this wild artist, and his father was pretty high up in the Navy. And my father did everything he could not to go to war. So they were here in the UK, and they were part of children of God. The nascent, you know, eventually it grew to like 130 chapters worldwide. Let's even unpack a, occult. Because to me, I've often tried to reconcile what actually is a cult. And typically, I've seen that. So a cult is normally what led by one ultra charismatic person. Secondly, is that it is maintained through coercion and manipulation. And the next is that oftentimes

Starting point is 00:05:53 that the participants are duped, entirely duped. So is that how you would quantify a a cult. You know, I wrote a book, I wrote a book called Brave, and I talk about cults in there and how I started actually recognizing them and their patterns in greater society. My definition is, yes, all of those things, but what I think the way cults have always been sold to the public as this idea that there's this charismatic leader, and then there's all these people sitting there just like, the reality of the fact is that that person was on stage or leading for a very short amount of time. The rest of the time, the group is cross hypnosis.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Cross hypnosis. That's what I see it as. And if you, as kind of later maybe we'll get to what I did in Hollywood, stand up and say, this is not right. This is programming. This is against human nature. This is not, we're better than this. I don't agree with this.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Instead of having a dialogue about it, you are cast out, you are scorned, you are shunned, you don't exist. You are effectively dead. So there are, there are religious groups still, you know, big ones and smaller ones that do this, but also families. Also, if like, okay, you are trans, that, okay, you don't exist to us. That's changing a lot. Thank God. But, or this. So you can see how the cult dynamic is one in human nature, but two, I think very much in any kind of group where if you, let's say you really love me and I really love you and we're great friends. But that's, friendship is contingent only on that if we believe in the exact same thing and say the exact

Starting point is 00:07:37 same thing and kind of signal to each other that we it's a language and and it's hypnotic language. Interesting. So really the cult leaders are there for 10% of the time. The rest of the time is up to the group. Okay. But what I understand, your father was considered in the earlier days to be a leader within children of God, right? So would you say that he was a part of, he was hypnotized in an essence?

Starting point is 00:08:00 I would say, my father was very charismatic, check, very beautiful, check, wild, unique thinker, check, check, check, but also looked like a rock star and loved the ladies. Check, check, check. And his ideals were really, I don't disagree with them. I mean, he was anti-capitalism, cool. But more interestingly, like, we would go out, like, my earliest memories of him, we would go out in the Tuscan hillsides, and we would go hunting. for colors. For colors? He was to me, like, it was just,

Starting point is 00:08:35 his mind was so unique and it informed so much of how I see things, right? And, yeah, like, we would go out and be like, oh, okay, now you have to find five different shades of blue. Now you have to find seven different shades of red or orange or what is the farthest you can see this light to. That was what we would, so instead of going the perception of hunting, as he was,

Starting point is 00:08:59 was raised doing maybe for with a gun and with an animal, something that dies. It was transmitted into something beautiful and unique. I see it. So for me, that's kind of like how my, you know. I see it. Yeah. And that, that was a big part of why he was so special. I think it really devastated him that the whole thing collapsed.

Starting point is 00:09:21 And he kind of didn't know how to fit into regular society. Yes. But he was, I would say, my greatest love and greatest enemy for a long time. Absolutely. I could see that, even in how you're speaking about him. I can even see how your voice changed ever so slightly in speaking about him. I could see now how he joined or why he would join because it was a place where he felt like he could fit in. He did this amazing painting after I was conceived.

Starting point is 00:09:49 It's Henry VIII in this full regalia. And you could see how he did it. You could almost see the hairs on the fur that he put in the jewels and gemstones. beautiful garden, but he also put an orange beanie on his head at the pom-pom and a big stine of logger. You know, just that was his perspective. So I can see what my mother was very much attracted to because there was a Duke. That was my father's, like, kind of number two.

Starting point is 00:10:12 Okay. And it was his grounds and his palace, Palazzo, that we grew up in. So that this kind of, um, very unique, massive property. So didn't really kind of go outside too much. And I grew up reading full books. And a lot of the books were from the 1700s, 1800s. So I had completely different names and information for things. And my first language was Italian.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Yes. The performing piece, though, you were performing. Was it you were made to perform? Is that correct? So you were literally performing because you needed to generate a certain amount of money to bring back to the organization to the people. LLC. No.

Starting point is 00:10:55 To the company. To the company. I don't know. I was at, you know, I know that we were in Malta at some point, which is, and I know we were deported from there. I think they were passing out, like, little pamphlets and things. And I think they just kind of the Maltese were like, that's a no for us. Wow. So it was, you were going out and performing in Italy.

Starting point is 00:11:16 So that was the beginning of your performance career, technically. Yes. So you were literally, you remember having to, did you feel the pressure of having to make money? I remember more that I remember noticing what other children were wearing and their clothes versus us, which was all kind of homemade. You could agree that this is not the atypical experience. Quite. Quite. One of the things actually when I met you

Starting point is 00:11:54 Because you said What I really like is guests that are very relatable And I'm like Oh Well this might not My baby But I think the

Starting point is 00:12:09 I think the feeling of the situations is highly relatable And then when I went out to greater society where it's kind of a more watered down version of an intense cult and intense relationship dynamics, an intense, I saw the patterns of it.

Starting point is 00:12:27 Yes. But I just saw that the people weren't actively aware that they were engaging in these patterns. Yes, yes, yes. And, you know, my father was very funny, but also sometimes not. He would call himself God with a small G.

Starting point is 00:12:41 It was his way of staying humble. I see. I see. With the small G. Fair. God was small G. I would imagine, though, an immense Because how old was your father at this time? Gosh, probably it would have been 26. Young man, lots of responsibility. And so he's gone with small G.

Starting point is 00:13:01 Right. But at a certain point, though, he decides that this is not the right. Yeah. This is not right. The British court, there's a British court case that found that the group, children of God, was an authoritarian cult, which engaged in the systemic, physical, and sexual abuse of children. And the founder, David Berg,

Starting point is 00:13:23 at one point in the 1970s, he claimed to have 10,000 full-time members in 130 communities around the world. I would imagine it is what the British court found. That's what inspired your father to get out. Yes. Right. Did you witness any of that?

Starting point is 00:13:46 Not in the way that I, They've read about others who've been in other chapters and some of the people that I, the kids that were raised in some other ones that I've met and known. And different, you know, and what, like, some people got, like, you know, deep in the Venezuela, back to the Phoenix family. Grew up, like, not all of them maybe, but some of the kids there, like River Phoenix, Joaquin, in the Venezuelan jungle. So it was a completely different. And then with that, some people I know, like got moved 27 times to 20. 27 different, different ones and were, definitely. I think there were some people in my, you know, family that my brother, that did.

Starting point is 00:14:33 But what I really, I think I was such a freaky child to them because I remember my father saying, why can't you be more childlike, like your sister Daisy? And I would say, statistically impossible. I was kind of like Wednesday Adams. I don't know how to describe it. It's interesting because that's how I see you. Oh, thank you. But really, that's how I see you as, you know, the rules that were given to you, you just laughed at them.

Starting point is 00:15:09 I just thought, you know, basically, yeah. I mean, and that that court finding, you know, is true, and it's horrific and it's done much damage. I think we skirt it on the edge. I think because of my father's position, there was protection. Yes. So your father literally, he escapes the cult.

Starting point is 00:15:33 My mom got left behind in it because at that point he'd had out legally, but like two-wife kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. So did he take his second wife? Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:45 So he takes his second wife, who's not your mother, but he takes you. But what I'm curious about is where did you feel safe as a little girl? No. Now.

Starting point is 00:15:57 So there's nowhere that you feel safe by the age of five. I've been asked that a lot quite like, do you feel safe now? And I, I, um, that was not a real word in my life that, and kind of even now, that's not, I've worked a lot on nervous system reset, things like that. But yeah, I don't, I don't think that was. I think I had moments, but I think I learned when kind of, kind of. the rug got pulled out to don't trust that moment. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:16:28 And would you say that the only person that you felt you can trust was yourself? Okay. Okay. So your father then takes you, his second wife, your brother. Well, actually, my brother and I got sent to the U.S. without them. Without them. And I remember crying because they served as some food. You know, I come from Italy.

Starting point is 00:16:54 and that food was like when you start at that level, everything else. Then now he got American 1980s food. Yeah, it was probably right out the microwave. It was shocking. Yes. My brother and I, we were in a supermarket. We'd never been in a supermarket. We'd never heard music coming in through speakers.

Starting point is 00:17:11 So we'd kind of hug our ears. And then we also saw bright orange cheese, which we thought was the funniest thing in the world. Like that. And then someone said, you're going to be living here now. And we started crying. Right. Look at that.

Starting point is 00:17:25 The joke was on us. Oh, my gosh. But I can imagine, though, that you are, this is an awakening of, it's probably a nightmare. Yeah. Right. That you're going through. But this was your father's family. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:36 So then is that your first time learning English? No, I understood it. I knew English. I just refused to speak it. I just was like. It's beneath me. It's beneath me. Okay.

Starting point is 00:17:46 I don't know why. I don't know where I got that from, but I did. I think it was also just the people that were like, you're so lucky. We saved me. do you and I was like and I just was like oh no and that the this kind of I thought arrogance that really bothered me yes still bothers me yes and misplaced arrogance why the name change and who was it was it your family no no it was um an administrator at the military base school really and I I I I've kind of I she acts I remember what

Starting point is 00:18:19 she said this lady and I remember me very small and her leaning over it was kind of like a scene in a movie. And her saying, and I remember it's just such a vile, I didn't understand what Mexicans were or what that great country is or their history. I didn't know anything about that, but she said, you don't want to sound Mexican. Oh, wow. That's what it was. Straight up. And that actually what a dramatic, almost sliding doors moment. I think Rose says a soft name. I think Rose, which isn't actually my name, but is, sounds to me like a bit of a velvet fist with some spikes on it. Beautiful, but thorny. It'll cut you.

Starting point is 00:19:01 I think also I just, I think I never even as a child perceived myself as a child. People would say, how old are you? And I would say 73,312. How old are you? And then they'd be like, scurry away. Right, right. But I just felt that old. I just felt ancient.

Starting point is 00:19:20 I felt like I was like part of time somehow. And I think partially why I've kind of lived maybe a unique life or kept kind of a, that brain is because I didn't have that kind of groundwork from a very small child of the same kind of programming that others got. I got different programming. But it was so obvious I could reject it, most of it. Some stock, but a lot I could push back on. But the other stuff was just, I was old enough to be like, well, that's goofy. I just can't. Not that I'm contrarian.

Starting point is 00:19:52 I'm not. Like, honestly, I'm not that fluffed about that many things. But I just didn't, like, who would I be if I was, you know, and then later having to be all these different characters. That's when I got lost. But I did, luckily, had a strong sense of self, I think. I don't know if that's lucky or unlucky. Don't know.

Starting point is 00:20:12 Yeah. I mean, I think it's blessed to have a strong sense of self, especially at that age. Because I think about my children, what I want for them to, More than anything is I want them to be kind, independent thinkers. You know, that's what I want. And it sounds like that's precisely who you were. You were kind, independent thinker.

Starting point is 00:20:33 But you just mentioned that that was during the period where some thorns came out. I'm assuming here a lot of this friction was between your mother's boyfriend. Was she married? Some marriages, yes. Okay. So the men in her life. And you, there was just friction. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:55 Okay. We did not like each other. Okay. When you think back to moments that stay with you from that time, what are those moments? I knew one liked blondes. Okay. My little sisters had blonde hair. I would see him coming down the hallway.

Starting point is 00:21:15 I would stand, I had short dark hair. I always kept my hair short. I remember standing in front of him and spitting in his face and knowing it was like, okay, let's go. But it was a distraction and it worked. Wow. And a lot of that, they don't remember that. Like, I've seen the eyes dilate, you know, like that person's eyes dilate when it's like almost like a hunting thing, right? Like an animal thing.

Starting point is 00:21:53 But I'm very proud that a lot of them. this is not really in their memory. But it's in yours. You are 10, 11? 10. Yeah. So you're 11. And you are, in essence,

Starting point is 00:22:14 trying to be the best defender to them as possible. So it's interesting, when you refer to the thorns, I mean, to me, this sounds like, this is, these are positive. These are, for you, because you are the, you are being the protector. you've now evolved into another version of yourself.

Starting point is 00:22:34 And it's incredibly unfortunate that it's these circumstances that have required that evolution. But you have now risen to the occasion, in essence, because you, I mean, at 11, anything goes left when I'm 11, I'm running away. you were running towards it and you were protecting your siblings. So you are now, to me, it sounds like you're evolving. But do you consider these to be thorns or a bad thing for you?

Starting point is 00:23:10 I guess I've always been told that they were a bad thing. Like, oh, you're thorny. Like, actually that's my mom. But it is, I think I have always perceived them as bad. But I think also I could, I have recently, very recently, started realizing that it is a special unique skill set, maybe not one that is the most ideal, but there is like a certain like born identity level skill set that I possess.

Starting point is 00:23:43 Yes, yes. And it's saved me later in even most recent years. Yes. Quite. Yes. So you would have these experiences with your mother. then you would go off to with your father. Were you having similar experience with your father?

Starting point is 00:24:05 No, it was... Totally different. Totally different. There, it would be, like, he had a friend for, like, one of his best friends was, like, a chef at the White House. So they'd be having, like, four-day roasts and cookouts, like, with, like, amazing food. And we were living in a town called Evergreen in Colorado, which is very beautiful.

Starting point is 00:24:21 The Rocky Mountains, idyllic, like, ice skating in the winter on the pond, and just, I had friends there, I think. I did. But I was also a weird kid still. Shocky. Shocky, but true. I remember, yeah, I just like, but there, and it was really interesting. Just one plane ride from where I was in Oregon or Washington to this other state.

Starting point is 00:24:52 And one place where I was made fun of and put down for certain things, the other place, I became wildly popular instantly. But I remember being very suspicious of that and thinking, but the people that are really mean to me and trying to kill me, that's an overreaction. They don't know me. Right. But you also don't know me.

Starting point is 00:25:13 But you're being celebrated over here. And granted, that's easier, but I'm also not buying it entirely because you also, it just was so, again, going back to that thing of, like, it was always so, it was, there was not a lot of shades of gray. Yes. Everything was always so extreme. So this is an age where we're really beginning to figure out what our identity is, especially visually, right? This is where self-esteem and self-worth and, you know, ego crops in.

Starting point is 00:25:46 What was your perception of self? Because you're calling, because we're calling you Wednesday, right? But we're adults. Yeah. we're, you know, we're matured. But we're like, okay, Wednesday is cool from our place of privilege. But at that point, though, how did you, though, see yourself? For example, did you feel like you were pretty?

Starting point is 00:26:12 Did you feel like you were? So that's interesting because I would be told I was ugly a lot. But I remember looking in a mirror. and being like, okay, my nose. Like, I remember thinking it's symmetrical. I don't know what these people are talking about. So it wasn't that I thought like, oh, I'm so beautiful. And in fact, looking back, I think I've looked like a kind of like an elegant 11-year-old small boy prince.

Starting point is 00:26:46 Okay. But not Prince Prince, Prince. Right. I see it's Prince. Okay. But just like a prince, a little prince almost. Like, I did this very delicate features. But I remember just looking at it mathematically and thinking, like, I don't really see what their, everything seems to kind of line up.

Starting point is 00:27:05 Okay, they must be wrong. I just went about my way. And then my mother said at one point that I grew a chest like overnight. So that must be weird to see. As a parent, at least you don't have that. This is true. This is true. But I also was like, I don't know, it was cool.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Like when I was 13, I ran away from a situation that I was put in. A stepdad was like, you know, kind of did this whole thing. And she has the makings of a drug addict, I guess was the whole thing. And I think it was really just get her out of here because I was trying to warn her again. She has the makings. MAKings. So. I didn't know what they were.

Starting point is 00:27:45 So, yeah, I kind of got, like, hijacked on the way to school and throwing the top floor of this hospital. And I was like, what? For your stepfather, he. wants you out. He then does what? I mean, this is that part I don't know, but it was this kind of like, hey, honey, let me drive you to school. And I was like, something weird is happening. This is a weird tone. And so we'd rock up, or drive, my mom's driving. And all of a sudden, I'm like, this isn't the way to the school. And we're driving into, it was called Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, Oregon.

Starting point is 00:28:16 And these kind of orderly dudes, like, pull me out of there. And the next thing, you know, I'm on top floor of this. It was a regular hospital. but the very top floor was like a kind of drug unit or something. Interesting. And it was, you know, adults, like adults, adult, adult, with drug problems or people trying to seek help for it. I don't know. But I would say to these doctors or counselors, I would say, I'm 13. I'm about to turn 13.

Starting point is 00:28:46 I don't even know what you're talking about. And they would say, I would say, I'm not a drug addict. And they would say, you're in denial. And I would say, oh, that's very clever. I can't get out of that. That's very clever. Very clever. If I can.

Starting point is 00:28:57 So prior to that point, though, you're not a drug addict, but how do you use drugs? I did go to the eighth grade dance of this one place, and the only school dance I'd ever been into, been to. And this guy who looking back was much older than the other kids there, maybe even held back. He said, do you want to hallucinate at the dance? And he had this little white square, which later I found out was LSD. And it was the tiniest little square And not knowing what drugs were Not knowing what hallucination was

Starting point is 00:29:28 Not knowing anything I said I'm sure that's not enough And took the entire thing Which was the rest of the square And then there was this group of like 30 girls Outside that wanted to beat me up And apparently just wandered through them With my arms out like Jesus

Starting point is 00:29:40 Making weird sounds just like oh I know and yeah So that And then my mom dragged me inside I got dumped out on the lawn And then I think that was the end to Gotcha So they witnessed that happen and said, okay, she must be an addict.

Starting point is 00:29:57 I mean, that's a real stretch. The makings of an addict. I was very upset because they said you'll have to be here for like a year. And I was like, oh my goodness. I was like, what? Like that, no, what? And that's a year of not being released, not being able to go home. They would take us to make us place like some basketball or something.

Starting point is 00:30:20 Again, like this tall. and they had like, you know, bars on the windows of the van, like protect. It was super weird. And so then I just leaned into it. I would say, well, you know, due to my massive LSD consumption, I can't tell if there's one or 20 basketballs coming at me. I really can't play. So I just, and then I kind of became the ringleader of all these weirdos at that.

Starting point is 00:30:42 The whole thing was just like peak absurdity. And I think luckily I've always like had a, like, I've just always seen kind of abstract, weird humor in kind of perilous kind of crap situations. Yes. So this is, in essence, this is rehab. Yeah. That they've placed you in. And also, it's the fact that you don't need it.

Starting point is 00:31:05 How long were you away for? I escaped. You escaped. I rolled out, like, I climbed over a fence from their basketball area, and just that was. Okay. And I, um, then I met. two drag queens who legitimately were performing drag and a stripper named Tina. And then I hit the road with them.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And then I learned a lot about drugs and decided LSD was the way. Like, yes, please. It was a way to go. Let's step it out. Level, like, I'm always going to rehab. Level it up. Oh, yeah. I didn't know anything about any of that before.

Starting point is 00:31:42 But now I knew. I was like, all right, let's go. What I left out of all of this is that what my big saving grace and how I related in understood the psychology of the big, wide, scary world was books. I started figuring out where all my favorite authors from the U.S. were buried, and I decided to go on this journey, and the police didn't really know what to do with me. I would say I know where my mom, you know, she changed her phone number, but I know the address, can you please buy me a bus ticket to one of them was Memphis, Tennessee.

Starting point is 00:32:13 Okay. And one of them was Ketchum, Idaho. Hemingway. Yes. Right, exactly. And one of them, so I would just, they, whatever I did, they would just buy me a butt. I think I was a lot less paperwork and it was a totally different time. It was not electronic.

Starting point is 00:32:28 Then I would go to my author's graves and I would read them a passage and then move along. I just needed a destination, I think. I decided I was like, okay, I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry. No one's looking for me. I don't know where I am. Okay, how can we make this fun? Right. That's always been kind of how we've been.

Starting point is 00:32:47 If we spent a second on the no one's looking for me. That part bummed me out. Yes. And that actually didn't really realize until kind of not that long ago. I was like, oh, I was able to work that hustle with the police in these different states because there was nobody looking for me. Because there was nothing, nobody notified any police. I imagine it was just a relief. I have no idea.

Starting point is 00:33:11 It is weird. That is, that is an odd one. Yeah. So at 13, your parents don't notify. anyone, any authority that you're missing? But eventually I got quite tired of being quite tired and cold, cold. Yes. And hungry.

Starting point is 00:33:34 I did call my aunt, and she sent me a ticket and came and met me and got me. And I stayed with her for a while. Okay. And where did your aunt live? Seattle, Washington. Seattle, Washington. That's, and then I became 14 there. There you go.

Starting point is 00:33:49 Wow. Exactly. You live 10 lives by 14. I know. Some people would be like, is Hollywood the weirdest and craziest thing that's happened to? I'm like, no.

Starting point is 00:33:59 Just with the, it was a different weird cult language that I didn't really understand, but no, not the weirdest. And not the most interesting, to be honest. And not the most unique and not the most vibrant and not the most fun.

Starting point is 00:34:13 And not the most artistic. No. But it could have been. Yes. But it wasn't. Yes. So I'm curious, at 14, I was tired.

Starting point is 00:34:21 You're tired. I needed it now. You're tired, but what's your outlook on life at 14? Because I remember at 14, my son is 15, my oldest is 15, he's beginning to get an inkling of, here's what I would like to do. Here's a path I would like to take. What was your thought on where you wanted to go at 14? Well, from a very young age, before I'd even seen a screen, I knew I was some of

Starting point is 00:34:52 be on it, but not in a way that was like, that's what, it was just like, I know this. Okay. So I should probably study for this. I would watch any time an old film came on and I would study their body language and their posture and how they would, you know, and how almost their faces moved with the light. And I would study, and then I would put like a sheet on myself and make it into a long evening gown. And at a town, I'm not the only kid that's done this, obviously. But I just knew I was training for destiny.

Starting point is 00:35:30 You, we could go as deep or light as you want to, but I would imagine home was not nice during this time. No, my dad went through a, like I was going through a very bad patch in his life. And I didn't, and I at this point was just very mad at all the situations. I was pissed off. I thought I kind of found safety living with my aunt, but then she's like, oh, great news. Your dad is moving here. And I was like, I hadn't seen him in a while. But historically, though, things were good with your father.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Somewhat, yeah, yeah. But then when I went to, I just, I'd seen him, I think, like, maybe a year before. And, like, it was like he was different. He was angry. He, I think he was very good to smaller children. I think also, you know, and I saw this to my sisters, like, or people that could look at people with this kind of worshipful eyes. And even as a child, I think that's what he meant when he said,

Starting point is 00:36:29 why can't you be like childlike? And I think I was my father's instant karma. I was the one in the corner of the room, like, I couldn't, couldn't lie. Some people, a lot of people need to kind of wear masks and they love people looking at them. with adulation. It's certainly nice, but as a requirement to have someone be around you, to be able to give that to somebody, I've never been able to perform that task. Okay.

Starting point is 00:37:00 I can't do it. And you believe he needed that. And I at that point was hard opposite. I could not give it. And he, like, you know, a bad situation with my stepmom that he likely caused. I think at this point he was a bit imbalanced. The month before Christmas every year would be a month of raging in his capitalism and consumerism. Not wrong, but also very stressful for kids who just want a tree and maybe a present or like something. So I could see both sides, but he couldn't fit back in the regular world.

Starting point is 00:37:34 There wasn't a place for him. And I think it just got, you know, a bit. And so I think also when you marry someone younger than you, eventually they grow up. And you're not kind of. So they broke up. He's his second life. And he was in a real, like I had never heard his term. I would get screamed out that I was a feminist all the time.

Starting point is 00:37:55 And I was like, what? Like, what's that? Like, and like I think for him, I was his nightmare of living with me. And he was my nightmare of having to live with him. And it was a bad year. I used to plot his murder in my closet at night. And I had a meat, like a chicken mallet. And I just, I had this, you know, I,

Starting point is 00:38:15 that I was going to read this monologue of like all these things that he'd done while then bashing him to death with this. I mean, the idea that someone would stay still for that is absurd. But yeah, it was, it was on, you know, and it was, it was, it was got, it was randomly, I think he had no idea how to express anything and I was there. And that sucked. I translated this later. When I lived with them, he would say, like, you're not worth buying silverware for.

Starting point is 00:38:44 not worth buying a bed for. I mean, these stories are also... But I really think, because what he really wanted to say is, I have no money. I, um, this divorce, everything collapsed. I'm an artist. The art market is crashed. I'm terrified. I'm despondent.

Starting point is 00:39:04 I have no way forward in the society. I don't fit in here. I do something that's not valued anymore. My mode of art airbrush is, is not computers are here. there's all these things, but he couldn't. So what you do is you just, you know, and I think this, again, when you, to your thing of backstage, like, relatability,

Starting point is 00:39:24 I think that is a common thing with a lot of people, that they're told something or that something is their fault when they're a child or even older, but really it's the other person, like, because if they had to probably acknowledge all the things they're afraid of, they might break. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 00:39:39 So with this perspective of grace that you give over your, father right i'm curious about your opinion of this okay well ready for this when you see this how would you describe it and how do you feel looking at this he had a couple more years to live after this maybe like one and a half i think he loved me very deeply and i loved him i think i was i was on my second year of a show called Charn. That's why I had the air color. He hated Hollywood, but couldn't explain why to me

Starting point is 00:40:25 in a way that I could understand and in a way that I could hear. And I think he loved me very deeply. Yes. Yes. I know he did. I don't even have to have met him to know that he did. And I thought how you just described the challenges that he had was so eloquent. Because I think this is, it's one of these where,

Starting point is 00:40:51 I've learned the older that I get, I can see, and you loved him. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Is the older that I get, the more grace I give to everyone but also my parents. And you realize when they grew up, what they had to witness, what they were not, the grace they were not given, what society was. was like what limitation of the tools that they had to then go out and raise a child or raise children and how a lot of these expressions were expressions of frustration. Yes.

Starting point is 00:41:36 And that's exactly. And the fact that you know this allows you to see that he actually did love you. And I think there's beauty in that. Yeah. I think so, too. Yeah. who's a cool cat, but really, you know, God, just, some people just, it's too, you know, it's, it's too much. It's too much.

Starting point is 00:42:00 And I think I was always stronger than him. But he's also taught me away of seeing the world, or maybe taught, or just jibed with that viewpoint. And, you know, he would take me in, in Seattle with, like, do AIDS hospital. And, like, just sit with people and hold their hands. Yes, yes. I'll tell you what's going to stay with me forever. Is your father taking you hunting for colors? Pretty cool, huh?

Starting point is 00:42:37 That's pretty cool. That's one of the coolest things I've ever heard, ever hunting for colors, yeah. And that makes, honestly, me more proud of him than anything else. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. That's cool. Thank you for that.

Starting point is 00:42:52 I acknowledge it. It is. It's very cool. I'm incredibly grateful right now for the One Better Guide by our sponsor, Adobe Express, for helping me to elevate one of the most important moments of the year for me, and that is the Amber Rising Campaign at Sutton United. Amber Rising is a campaign I started last year to help increase the number of people attending football matches who had never been before. It was such a great day.

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Starting point is 00:44:40 Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them, that's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in. Dashboard, Confessions. I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bowl spend.

Starting point is 00:44:59 LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, terms and conditions apply. Just a heads up, this next section includes discussion of sexual assault. Please watch with care. So how do you go from a 14-year-old in Seattle, living with your father, to Hollywood? I saw a flyer that someone had posted for, like,

Starting point is 00:45:28 He could be an extra in a movie for $35 a day. And I was like, all right. So I did that. And I wound up funny being cast as a... I've never seen this movie. It does look absurd. But it was some robot cyborg teachers, you see. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:45:52 As they do. And I was in a gang called The Black Hearts. and I had their little drawn black heart on my little cherub face, this little round head. And it was funny because you could just, I have seen clips of it and I had no dialogue,

Starting point is 00:46:10 but they definitely made me a featured extra. And so like, there'd be in this classroom scene, you'd just see my little head just kind of like, I was so dumb. So that was your first film. Yeah, and then I met this kid on it

Starting point is 00:46:23 that was like a child star and had been, in, to me, one of my favorite vampire movies Near Dark and a movie called River's Edge. So how is it that you specifically get from or go from Seattle to, is it L.A.? An Amtrak. That's specifically how you did.

Starting point is 00:46:44 You asked. But by yourself. Yeah. I don't remember the leaving. I do remember feeling very badly. I told my little brother at that point had come to live with my dad and I, and I felt very, very bad about having to leave him

Starting point is 00:46:59 with my dad at the stage my dad was in, but I also knew that I was either going to kill my dad with the chicken mallet or he would kill me. And I felt really bad leaving my brother, but I couldn't do it anymore. And I also knew this was my shot out. All right.

Starting point is 00:47:13 My way on. Did you have anything lined up? No, because you're 14. Right, but I did have the child actor on the set that I made friends with and his mother, Susan Miller, who they were, kind of askanced it. They were like from old Hollywood in a way, like the history of them.

Starting point is 00:47:33 And they took me in. So I lived in this big house in an area called Hancock Park. Wow. And I auditioned. They got me an audition and I auditioned. I got one line in a movie with Brendan Fraser and Polly Shore called Encino Man. Encino Man, yes. And I remember being very upset that they wouldn't give a hot. It was a night shoot. It was a night time. and the extras were cold, and they wouldn't give them hot coffee. I remember thinking the producers, and I remember just thinking, like, it just felt like there's some, and then I thought, oh, these people are not for me. These people are not cool.

Starting point is 00:48:14 This is not my vibe. I love Brendan, and that was cool. But no. And then I, actually, my mom moved to Los Angeles, and we had a really beautiful, I think It was like six or seven months together, and I actually did, like, a semester at Hollywood High. Okay. Which is where some very famous people went to school. And I did my one theater experience was there, and I played Antigone, who, you know.

Starting point is 00:48:42 Yes. I remember that was really powerful, and that was cool. I really actually did well with those people. There were the first time I was around younger people, because I also, like at 14 in Seattle was, like being photo. photographed and had a boyfriend that was like 36 who had dropped me off a block away from my dad, boyfriend. Didn't understand later. I'm like, I didn't, I just didn't, so didn't relate to people my age. I didn't know what.

Starting point is 00:49:14 You had a boyfriend who's 36 when you were 14. Yeah, I did not understand. Now I'm like, oh, now I understood, obviously with hindsight, like when he would take me to party as people would be like. And I just thought maybe they thought I was ugly or freaky because that was how I interpreted when people would look at me weird. Was that at 14, was that your first boyfriend? That was your first relationship. And he would show me like, you know, French films with like older men

Starting point is 00:49:47 and like, you know, the classic grooming crap would make it art. Yes. And now I'm like, the wonder my dad would have killed you. And rightfully so. Yeah. So that was, how long was that relationship? I mean, I'm in your relationship. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:50:03 I'm in six months. Six months, okay. And then I left, yeah. And then you left. I tell you, though, I can see that your entire life was, it was not a 14-year-old's life whatsoever. No. So I didn't know where to, what do I fit, you know? And honestly, like, there were times when I would walk down the street and some of these places I lived, you know, when I was younger and I would look at families.

Starting point is 00:50:30 through windows, not like in a creeper way, but in a way almost, kind of especially around the holidays. I would see, like, it just, and I was like both confused, comforted and jealous at the same time because it was like this really, like, I know I've met some people that have been like, well, I can't compete with your life. And I'm like, no, no, you're like, a. a more stable, beautiful, consistent, safe, that's exotic and beautiful to me.

Starting point is 00:51:10 That, to me, is highly interesting. Yes. And I felt really bad for a lot of these Hollywood kids, you know, like their parents were very wealthy, working very hard, but would kind of slip a check from the accountant under the door and, like, let that be it. That's it.

Starting point is 00:51:28 No intimacy. see, just here's the money. These kids were like spoiled, obnoxious, rich, lonely, empty. Your mother, she must have known she was going to leave. Why was she leaving?

Starting point is 00:51:44 Where was she leaving to go? She went back to, at that point, I think she went back to Washington State and to my youngest brother who, you know, that was good. Okay. And had fallen for someone and maybe it was job.

Starting point is 00:52:00 too. I don't know that that, that, but moved, yeah. Okay. So she, but we had actually a great time for that six or eight months. It was really, I had a brilliant time with her. We had this really, really cute 1920s little bungalow right dead in Hollywood now. Like, I know, like you wouldn't live in that area. It was like a sketchy area, but it was a real house. It was a really beautiful time. And I got to be with my mom. Yeah. This is the first time that I can think from knowing your story all the way through to this age. So you are, you are, you are, you are. 15. 15. You're 15. This is the first time that you've had what would be considered to be a safe family environment,

Starting point is 00:52:42 a safe home. Safe home. Yeah. So this is. So the fact that then your mother wants to leave, that must... That sucked. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:52:52 That must be terrible for you. Yeah. That was not ideal. But I also... There was no place for me, like really, because my dad was as he was when I'd left him. And then with my mom, it would be with this, there was no, and I couldn't return to that world. I'd already been in this world. You know, I'd already been, you know, so I'd already been around, like, some quite famous, much now I knew they're, like, how famous these people were, like from legendary older actors.

Starting point is 00:53:27 Like from back in the day, that would be at the Hancock Park House that I was staying at. with them. So I was exposed to, you know, a different level of kind of unique fabulousness. And again, I'd been raised on these kind of classic films of this idea of classic Hollywood. And that was kind of very much around me. Yes. But by the time I was 15 and a half, I'd gone to court to legally emancipate myself. I don't know what they call that in the UK, but essentially divorcing your parents so you can have autonomy. You can have a bank account.

Starting point is 00:53:58 You could, you know, I wasn't old enough to drive, but I. I did that. And I remember that I remember feeling, I had gotten very few compliments in my life on my mind. And I remember the judge saying, you would make a fine lawyer. So I go out. Look at that. Look at that. Nice compliment at 15.

Starting point is 00:54:15 But you're emancipated now. So you are responsible for yourself at 15, responsible for where you're going to live. What's the next film for you? It was a wild movie. It was called The Doom Generation. And honestly, it's super bananas crazy. but I love it. Visually, it was so cool.

Starting point is 00:54:34 So cool. So many artists working on it, like the crew and, like, every level of department. Really amazing. But there was, it also felt like really, like, kind of sexist, too, in a lot of ways, behind the scenes. Like, I was, some stuff was got, like, they laid me on top of, it's not the actress's fault. They laid me on top of his body face-to-face for the chemistry thing. And he had an erection, and that's not his fault. You just laid a girl on top of them

Starting point is 00:55:01 and then now save the lines for the camera. There was no scene in the movie that was that, but I kind of floated out of my body. So I quickly realized it was like, okay, no one's going to protect you again. And that was, you know, okay, you're on your own in a way. But I also still understood how to deal with. And then before the movie came out,

Starting point is 00:55:22 I'm on the cover of interview magazine, a very famous magazine, one of the cover of all the... So life really changes just like that. But even in that process, okay, help me understand this because I'm, I think I understand Rosa. Yeah. Rose gets confused. Yes.

Starting point is 00:55:39 But I feel like this is the beginning. This is, this is Rose almost. Because to me, correct me if I'm wrong here, Rosa would have walked away the moment that something went slightly awry on that set or didn't feel, didn't feel as if it was. was in her eyes as right, she would have said, I'm done. Yeah. I think something to do with the fact that I was homeless again and that when she asked me if I wanted to be, I said, well, how much money does it pay? And it was 10,500.

Starting point is 00:56:18 And I realized a very small amount of money. But with that, I could get a flat. I could get an apartment. I could live somewhere. All right. That was why. All right. Makes sense.

Starting point is 00:56:28 Makes sense. But then all of a sudden, I'm being sent around the world at film festivals. People, when it premiered at Sundance Film Festival, like, you know, like there was like a real, like some people walked out, like one person vomited, the director was like, yes, which I kind of thought was punk and amazing, and other people really loved it. My father, I told him, don't go see this movie when it played at the Seattle Film Festival. And again, I didn't understand at this point, I knew because I had a topless scene. I think my character was that kind of, like, sad in a bathtub.

Starting point is 00:57:01 And then my dad, I thought he, I told him not to go, but he did. And then he chased the director out and tried to beat him up in the alley, which now I'm like, well, fair play. Did he? Did he? But I didn't, he didn't tell me that, the director I told me. But my dad didn't come up. And he did say, like, well, congratulations on officially being a whore. That's what you found.

Starting point is 00:57:24 And we didn't talk for about five years after that, yeah. I think he saw and understood more about the machine of Hollywood than I did. But at the time, I was like, no, these are cool people. This is good. And so I was like, you know, pass. Right, right. So from that film... Basically, I think it was Scream.

Starting point is 00:57:43 Okay, Scream was the next one. Maybe, like, one or two. I can't remember the order. And very quickly, once you get the agent and the manager, now I'm like this person with that life before, but now I'm dealing with contracts and lawyers and managers and agents and business managers and percentages and the people that I would kind of audition against the other girls would be people that usually started at like six months old with like a stage mom who would say like I'll watch out for that person or this person or like they kind of knew the lay of the land I was like and I maybe I mean looking back historically there's very few without nepotism like like with like even like they might appear like they they just were there or organically, but their dad might be a famous cinematographer or something like that. So I really had no, I'd only seen these old movies as my preparation for Hollywood.

Starting point is 00:58:35 I was going to ask about the apparatus because what I imagine, to your point, is you had no, like, you didn't have family giving opinion. No, I couldn't ask anybody anything. No, it's just, it's literally you. So you then, I would imagine after that first film, you definitely have manager, agent, maybe publicist. Yeah. Do you have, what is your social circle look like, though?

Starting point is 00:59:04 Do you have friends that are besties that you can go, no, I mean, no one, just you? No, it was always really lonely. Also, and I can say this not in any kind of arrogant way, because in some way, I was, like, for a while, like a freakishly beautiful. young woman. Like to that period, there was not filters. There was not, you know, like the plastic surgery, not like injections, none of that. It was like at that point to either be a supermodel or on screen, you almost had to be at a freakish, like Olympian level of, not just of talent, but also a flux. Like it had to be also unique in a way. And to kind of break in that way was, I also had a really wild story that made for Katnip for the press.

Starting point is 00:59:56 It was interesting, you know. It was, but it was never, the way it was told was never, like, kind of real or in depth, but it was, it was, and I always gave good quotes. I didn't know what the hell was doing. I just had to pretend, but it was, it was at that point, it was just like, like, no, a lot of times, like, I would, they would have an amazing photo shoot, this great kind of artistic experience with incredible makeup and cool hair and a cool outfit. But after it was done, I would just go home and watch an old movie, because. because I didn't have anyone to go out with or do anything with. The perspective, I think so many of us looking from the outside would think, oh, Rose McGowan had a whole crew of people at the house.

Starting point is 01:00:39 And no, it was... I was also quite shy. You know, I saw someone posted a, like, a clip of a behind-the-scenes interview with me when I was doing Scream. I was like, I was looking down. I was, like, very shy. And I could act a really good game, right? But I intrinsically, I was like, I didn't, I was like in a, I could handle being, like, arrested in the cops and I could give it to them and know, like, what I was doing there.

Starting point is 01:01:13 But in this fancy world, it was very destabilizing. And I love the other actors, the co-stars, the director. That movie was very, very special. but everybody would talk about the boss, this loser named Harvey Weinstein. Oh, I didn't realize he was over screen. He owns. They were always kind of scared he would come to set.

Starting point is 01:01:40 The only thing I would hear would be this kind of like fear when people would mention it. And I think what people don't understand, one, you know, that movie and then I immediately got cast in a second movie for his company. Okay. Where I was playing a 16-year-old. And in the middle of that film, my heart tracing, I got sent to Sundance again.

Starting point is 01:02:08 And the first Sundance was fun. Like, we got to go to these, like, kind of cool parties that were more, like, organic, like, kind of cool, like, kind of after-hours-type parties with, like, indie filmmaker. So it was kind of punk DIY thing. Now, this thing was a totally different machine. And at this point, there was like a camera crew from MTV following me. It was like Rose McHowan, a day in the life, 24 hours with her, right? And I had four films.

Starting point is 01:02:37 I'd done four films, and they hadn't come out yet. But they gave me four days off from the movie where I was playing a 16-year-old, to call Phantoms, to go do my press obligations at Sundance, blah, blah, blah. And at that point, nobody else had ever had four movies in competition. There was a really big deal. And, I mean, that's what they were all telling me. So I am in the theater for one of the movie screenings. And my manager, this woman, I see she's behind me.

Starting point is 01:03:09 And I see this kind of big pockmarked kind of shadow behind me that she's talking to. And it was Weinstein. And every day. Everybody who ever talked about this man, they would like with fear. I think it was like the mafia boss, really, honestly. And he's, you know, big and giant and tough. And later I would see that grown men shake if he walked in the room. Like adult men that were like power players.

Starting point is 01:03:36 They would like start physically shaking, the terror. It's hard for people to kind of understand the level of control and power. Even though he wasn't maybe making the most money out of anybody, if there's something about his situation to have a lock and a hold on people. What do you think it was about the situation? Because I've heard stories, people to, we actually had a guest, Mylene class, who had an experience, unfortunately, with him, but would talk about the power that he exuded. What do you think it was about his positioning that gave him that? I don't think it was just, I think he was a thug. I think it was like, almost like, not the mafia boss of

Starting point is 01:04:20 the cool kind with a suit, like, you know, who, you know, like the Marlon Brando, you know, Godfather type, but more like a streetway. Like, but he, you know, and I think he, he used that whole casting couch thing as his cover for a long time because that wasn't his thing. Of course, there were sad girls or people that would sleep with that to get ahead. That wasn't what he liked. He liked finding the special ones. And I think it was like a glutton.

Starting point is 01:04:48 It was like eating. I think he liked, like, wanted to sell. their soul. But I think in my situation, that camera crew was following me, and I'd seen the night before the premiere of one of my movies at Sundance, I'd seen my manager and him with their heads together. And she's very excited afterwards. And she's like, tomorrow morning, you have a meeting at 10 a.m. at the Stein Erickson Lodge, which was like the fanciest hotel, you know, kind of there. In the dining room, you'll have breakfast with your boss and discuss your future with the company. At this point, Gwyneth Paltrow, like, you know, maybe I already won an

Starting point is 01:05:21 Oscar or was, like, on her way to. And it was like, it was like, if you're one of the chosen ones, this will be, this is your wonderful life. You gotcha. So he was looked at as the star maker. Right. And I was already a star, like, the movie I'd made was already, like, on its way to making, how many billions is made by now, but a lot. Everything in hindsight, every detail leading up to that moment, I could see how orchestrated it was to get me into the position that I was in from the Mater D of the restaurant saying, oh, no, he's delayed on calls and would like you to go upstairs to the presidential suite. And it's always put in the press, which he later bought off against me for well over two

Starting point is 01:06:03 decades. I'll explain more of that later. But I turned to the MTV cameras and I turned to them and I said, I think my life is finally getting easier. And that was what I kicked myself for. I felt like that was the one thing. A lot of people blame themselves for, like, if I hadn't have done this, I kind of, that was the one, the only thing that I could grab on to that I could say I wish I hadn't done because anything else, it was just this. And when people think they present it as if you're opening a door in a hotel and there's the bed, no dummies, this is a presidential suite.

Starting point is 01:06:38 This is where, like, the president's stay. It has three offices. It's massive. Also, I was supposed to be in the dining room. But then they're like, he's finishing up calls. So then I go and I knock on the door, these two assistants come out. And I'm like, good morning, and they wouldn't look at me. Really?

Starting point is 01:06:52 They would not look at me. And I remember thinking, like, dickheads. If one of you had just said, like, watch out. My street instincts would have kicked in. Right. But I really thought I was safe. I thought I was with fancy people that I already had the jobs. I wasn't trying to get a job.

Starting point is 01:07:13 Right. And did you, had you heard anything about? No. No. The four movies I'd done leading up to that point were all feeling. I was filmed at night. I had very little contact with the outside world. I was filming back to back to back.

Starting point is 01:07:26 I was, none of them were filmed in Hollywood. I didn't know, I wasn't moving in social circles. I was still pretty unknown because scream, I think, had just come out. I was just going to, but it wasn't, I wasn't, like, I was on magazine covers and stuff like that, but I remember standing next to somebody at a knee stand thinking, oh, surely everyone's going to recognize me. Nobody did. wasn't like a thing yet.

Starting point is 01:07:52 No. And was your manager invited to this meeting? No. And later I learned she got a packaged deal to work at his company. Okay. You can see the orchestration of it all. The camera crew is no longer than filming you. No, they stay outside.

Starting point is 01:08:13 And so it's sitting actually quite like this. Quite just like this. Actually more distance between. There was a big table in between us. You remember every moment of certain. things you replay every, every angle, every detail over and over and over. And your thought is, is my life is about to get easier. Well, I thought he's going to be so charmed by my knowledge of film.

Starting point is 01:08:32 He loves, I hear he loves cinema. He talks about how he loves cinema. That's what we talk. For the first 45 minutes of this hour-long meeting, I was talking about film and cinema and classic films and this and that. And it was actually on my way out. I was almost out. I saw the door.

Starting point is 01:08:48 I saw the door. And then it just kind of like got sideways pulled in. to like a room with like a hot tub. And the next thing I... It all happened, you know, as people say they go through this, very fast and very slow. And the next thing I know, I'm like, have no clothes on and I'm like, just like a statue.

Starting point is 01:09:05 And I was like... Just like... And then I just froze. And then I like... There's literally no way that anybody could be like, yeah, this person's into this. No way. But what he would do, and I would find this out later,

Starting point is 01:09:18 is that he would buy a journalist, they would write an article or a story, and he would say, I'm going to option this and turn this into an Oscar-winning film. And this was all documented and put out later that he had a hit list. And he would buy the journalists all over the world. I mean, the level of this stuff is wild, right? I'm like, the scale of a full-time job behind the full-time job.

Starting point is 01:09:40 It's crazy to me because I'm lazy and not organized. But he would then he would say, I'm going to turn this into an Oscar-winning film, sign on the dotted line. Here's it. And they would. And then you say, in exchange, if you ever see this person, this person, and you have a, like, a whole list. And I was number one at the red line through my name at the top. If you ever see them at a premiere, if you see a photograph of them, I want you to write the most disgusting article. They're a whore.

Starting point is 01:10:08 They're a drug addict. They're stupid. They're trash. All this stuff. So that was like, well, I, but I didn't know that for years how that had happened. I used to just think I must have killed the journalist in my past life. So immediately I go out to this photo call. I'm like super trauma.

Starting point is 01:10:22 And then I started like short-circuiting. First I get taken and there's all these cameras. And I tell, you know, the person standing next to me where I just come from and I'm, you know, and his response, I was like, he knew. I'm sorry. Who asked you this? This is. That was actually the actor that had already done movies with him, you know, and knew. And then I was like, and that kind of stuck him.

Starting point is 01:10:45 I was like, what? But there's all these flash bulbs going off. So the actor assumed that you had been assaulted. Just just just so goddamn when I told him to stop doing this. That was the direct quote and Believe me with every fiber of my being every step of the way I wish responses and things had been different you know really truly Can I ask and after an assault like that happens how it was so orchestrated?

Starting point is 01:11:20 the moment that you leave, do you feel as if, you know, do you feel as if the world has then been or, everything is fake? Everything is, nothing is real. That became over the course of the next days because I actually, I had three more premieres to go to and that afternoon I got on a flight and I went back to L.A. And I was like, I just was short-circuiting. I couldn't. And I was being yelled at for doing that. But I was like, I was It's like your life before, your life after. Here's who you were before. This, this.

Starting point is 01:12:01 And here's you are. And now, then I immediately went to the management office wherein he said, I just had an L.A. Times expose on him killed. God damn it, he owes it to me not to do this. Weirdly, kind of the same pattern of, and then I said, I want to see a criminal attorney. years later, an assistant of mine much later said, oh, I met this woman. She wants to apologize to you.

Starting point is 01:12:26 She was the actress hired to portray the criminal attorney. So? And so, and she goes, but I also knew that she was like, you'll never win. And so then I thought, oh, I had a couple thoughts. I thought, maybe if I go to therapy for six months, I can be who I was again before this happened. I don't know, just like kind of childlike in a way.

Starting point is 01:12:51 And then the other thought was like, Like, I found out very quickly that he was making payments like every week. To various people he'd assaulted. Very sad. But they had to sign something called an NDA and non-disclosure, and I'd never heard of this. And I asked, and I said, well, if you sign a non-disclosure, what, you mean you can never tell like your therapist or a friend or you never can. And in my mind, I was like, oh, then you can never heal from this. Oh, I can't do that.

Starting point is 01:13:27 So then I also thought, well, so I tried, I did something through, and I have the document, I provided that later document to the New York Times, which was, I said, I kind of tricked them. I said, I just, I asked for the smallest number I could think of that would still seem reasonable. I didn't want a million, because then I'd have to sign an NDA. But if I asked for $100,000, then I have to. I thought two things. I could buy a billboard. I wanted to buy a billboard. I said, like,

Starting point is 01:13:56 loser Weinstein is a rapist. But what that 100,000 got me was a document saying this is to buy peace. And he said, but it was not a non-disclosure. I see. I see. Which allowed you to be able to disclose. I sometimes wonder, like, had I shut up? And this would be especially Oscar time when I would see all these people thanking him. They calculated that he was thanked more times than God at the Oscars. They counted. Someone counted. And did a supercut of every single person.

Starting point is 01:14:27 Because he was their God. And that's when I started really seeing the parallels to and how it operated. But I would go at that point, I had been on this trajectory that was like, boom. And then next thing, you know, I'm already kind of like then at that point, fame was hitting, like, like outside of Hollywood. And people were coming up to you on the streets. I was causing disruptions wherever I went. And I'm thinking like, oh no, what other job? I caused kind of chaos at the time, like being very famous.

Starting point is 01:14:59 Like, everyone's pointing and like, like, you know, chasing after you and like and autographs and all the stuff that you see for experience. And I felt well and good. I felt well entrapped. Well entrapped. Yeah. What are there? I'm famous. I cause a, now I cause it.

Starting point is 01:15:18 chaos when I just go to get coffee. That was all happening kind of at the same time, the outer world. These movies were hitting. I see. And I'm now like, I don't, I can't get. What job do I get? I can't go to school. What do I do?

Starting point is 01:15:33 Right. Is there a certain point where you realize that you're not being listened to? Very quickly. Very quickly. I was like, what? The responses were so strange that I was like, wait, people knew about this? Wait, what? And then actually, there was a voicemail on my phone.

Starting point is 01:15:55 It was him. I still had this tape somewhere in storage. And it was a... He named off three actresses. This is my special friend. This is my special friend. You're my new special friend. And I remember sliding down on the floor in the dark and just like...

Starting point is 01:16:15 And those people still... They were very, very famous. And they have won Oscars. one of them and the other one, they talk, you know, it's just as where it is, but I was not raised in that way and I didn't understand. And honestly, someone said, would you trade who you are, your soul, your spirit, your body to get this? Fuck no. I'm not that person. So what was his intention of that voice in the? Basically, if you shut up, here's the keys to the kingdom. Gotcha. You can have an Oscar like this person or a talk show like this person. And I just thought,

Starting point is 01:16:50 I don't value what you value. That's the problem here. Did you respond to that voice in her? No. No. I did think, like, how did you get my number? Well. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 01:17:05 At what moment do you become fearful? Because I would imagine that... I became more despondent and angry. Okay. I would say... I think I just kind of caved in on myself. Okay. And then I was slated to do a movie...

Starting point is 01:17:20 I had to go back and finish playing the 16-year-old. That was. Right, because that's for his company. And the attitude on that set, except for the great and wonderful Peter O'Toole that was in Loris of Arabia, we became friends on that set and stayed friends until he died. He was amazing, but he was certainly above that fray. But the other two kind of men on there, like,

Starting point is 01:17:44 it was like no longer would talk to me, look at me. It was immediate punishment of me. It was just the class. boring story. And really if you took my story and put it to the 16-year-old cheerleader, you know, of a football team who gets assaulted by the coach and then the whole town turns against her because he's the famous one. And it's not dissimilar. It just went on and on and on and on. And so what I did, though, was like, I just, like at that point, then the movies I was getting were much less savory.

Starting point is 01:18:22 offer is not as good. But I had to do, I was already famous. I did not know what else. I felt very trapped behind a screen and I didn't know how to get out. And at that point, I'm Rose McGowan. So over the last year, the amount of guests that we've had, women who have experienced sexual assault, has blown me away. To the point where now I'm getting involved in campaigns were violence against girls and women, in particular here in the UK. And I think that a lot of what happens to boys is that there's no dialogue, there's no discussion around this whatsoever.

Starting point is 01:19:03 And it's happening in isolation with our most toxic men. And when it is when it's brought up, when it's mentioned, it's brought up as a joke, it's mentioned as a joke. And the room takes it as a joke. Oh, yeah. Oh. But it's not, it's not, it's not attacked head on as it should be. And I have so many ideas around what we could be and should be doing as a society. It's pretty staggering.

Starting point is 01:19:38 Staggering the numbers. And I think that's amazing. I would say maybe we talk after, but to include to include some boys and men in that too. in the not just women and girls. Something that I learned that I... I'm sorry, you're saying violence against boys and men. Okay. Something that I was not like you, how you didn't,

Starting point is 01:20:01 like that I did not know the staggering levels of boys and some men that get until, you know, jumping way far ahead, but the kind of Me Too onslaught, something that was super wild to me was that about, I was getting, it was a global, like thousands of thousands of messages a day for, on all DMs, on all platforms for probably three or four years straight. And I would say that 85% were from men and straight and gay.

Starting point is 01:20:42 The youngest I remember was 14 that reached out to me. The oldest was 85. and I, like, kind of like, my babysitter, my aunt, this, this nanny, the male swim instructor, this and that, and that, and I have a theory, and then they, almost every, without fail, every single, I was just kind of just kind of scroll. I couldn't, like, it was just like the store, I was like, it was breaking my brain. It was so intense. I was like, I became like this kind of receptacle for people's pain, but very specifically men and boys. And what was very wild was I did not know the scale of this. I still think I'm just touching the scale of that.

Starting point is 01:21:32 But then I think they get told and I suspect, I could be wrong, that I think boys and men might perceive that women or girls like talk about their deepest pain. or shame together or that. They have some outlet for something bad that's happened to them. Right. I can't say this is not so. Nobody wants to deal with those stuff. Nobody. Which, fair, me neither.

Starting point is 01:22:02 And if you do, it's in a moment of like maybe you're drunk or maybe it's a sad moment. You let off steam or something pops out, but then you gloss it over and pretend like, you know, change the subject and go on. Right. I perceive things and tell me if I'm wrong. I mean, not that you're the authority of all society, but I think boys and men might have this fake information given to them that we have an outlet for pain as women and just kind of talk about stuff and work through it. And that there might be some jealousy on that side from that perspective. But I can unequivocally say on our side, we do not. So I will say, not speaking on behalf of all men.

Starting point is 01:22:43 And I can't speak to behalf of all women because I'm a weirdo even there. But say, I'm a weirdo on my side too. We're two weirdos having a conversation. So, but I will say that I think the overwhelming perception is among the men I do know is that yes, women speak to a deeper degree and have more of an outlet around pain, traumatic experience, perilous situations versus versus us. I think society continues to create this message, this narrative, that women talk and men don't. And I think that men and women talk. You know, perhaps we talk about different things. But the idea, to your point, is I think the idea is that, yes, you talk more about emotional matters, which involves fear and pain.

Starting point is 01:23:44 and we don't. I think that is the, that's the perception. I think, I definitely think that, yeah, I've, I've suspected that was a perception because I see how these sides are being sided and played against each other from the higher to higher up as someone who was used as a weapon against. And that's why I would bounce. I was like, no, I'm not going to be your weapon. Goodbye.

Starting point is 01:24:14 And I've had some, some deep friendships with women. And they might share a story that I might share a story, maybe. And then we just, that's like, but like a, oh, yeah, that, oh, yeah, that happened to me. But no, I think everyone, it's, it's just uncomfortable for everybody. I think this is universal. And I think the weaponization of, of this fake idea that we get to work through stuff, would, if I was, a boy who's having to mask my pain and told to just put, you know, put on your suit and get on with it, I would be have kind of a resentment of jealousy against that because I would think that's

Starting point is 01:24:59 not fair. I need help and no one's helping me. Who do I talk to? Whereas the girl is like, where are these other girls and women that talk to each other? I would like that. I need some help. I don't know how to say it. But they're all, well, we're all getting ready to go to this party or this dance or this thing and well I don't want to be a downer okay let's let's go right right so I'm not going to say it yeah all right if you've made it this far I know you're loving the conversation so please do me one small favor hit that bell icon join our community so so meeting Marilyn Manson was I wanted to you know I wanted to feel young again I felt very old at this point I felt very, like, I think many people have gone through either a death or some kind of horrific thing or assault.

Starting point is 01:25:56 You know, they just want to be who they were before that happened. It just, that, can we just rewind time? Just a little bit. I read somewhere, like, you know, he had a crush on me and he opened the door of a movie theater. And I said, oh, hey, I hear you have a crush on me. That's how you met. This is, what is this, about 97, 98? 98.

Starting point is 01:26:15 97, 98. Yeah. And I just, I ran away with the circus at that point. I had described him in my book as one of the smartest, funniest people I'd known, very gentle. And there's so many people that were, that I kind of recognized, like, people trying to destroy someone for being a freak and weird and unique. Yes. That I related to that. And I put me on my, like, high defensive mechanism.

Starting point is 01:26:41 Like, I can protect him. Oh, yeah. I mean, especially, given how you've described your life. He seems like he's your perfect match. Yes. Yeah. Except for he was from Ohio. Okay.

Starting point is 01:26:53 From a very normal place. And he would eat like these things called Hot Pockets, extremely American in a way, classic, with his mom and dad named Barb and Hugh and a solid family unit. And, yeah, no, like very kind of pedestrian life in a lot of ways until he went into music. Yeah. So in that way, completely different. But physically on the surface. also being around like kind of unique artists and like kind of more extravagant wild people

Starting point is 01:27:23 men that wore makeup I mean my first boyfriend wore thin long black dresses you know like this is not unique to me it's not unique at all this is just this actually feels much more comfortable to me than like a guy in a baseball hat like that's weird like from another planet for me

Starting point is 01:27:43 so yeah But now you described him as at that point, he was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Quite. He was at the VMAs in 98. But I think it was your dress that got more attention than anyone at the VMAs. You know, it's interesting. There's a thing, and I've seen it with hindsight, of how women after there are girls after they're assaulted. Maybe boys, too, but I don't know how that manifests.

Starting point is 01:28:15 that they then go on a kind of like they dress differently, like they dress provocatively or they, you know, they're like, is this what you want? And I'd actually just found out that I was always like, why do the photographers yell over the shoulder, over the shoulder all the time? Why do they scream like that? I didn't understand.

Starting point is 01:28:35 Then I asked someone, a photographer, and they said in the line on the press line. And he said, oh, they make three times as much money if they get your face and your backside in the same shot. I was like, ha. Look at that. Oh, you don't say. Then I also thought, well, this is Marilyn Manson.

Starting point is 01:28:52 Well, I got to win. Yes. So that dress, that was purely your idea. Oh, yeah. Where do you get a dress like that? It was actually someone that was sent close to him. And I saw their look book and I said, oh, that would be funny as hell. Because I just found out that information about the money.

Starting point is 01:29:14 And I kind of, but I didn't have the comprehension or scope. One, internet. No, didn't he says two. I think I really just thought of it in this bubble. I didn't think of how the outside, how the blowback, the slut shaming for years. But it was also that thing of like, you know, later seeing the movie Gladiator when he comes out at the end, he's like, are you not entertained? Yes. Very much that.

Starting point is 01:29:39 Because a lot of people have copied that dress. A lot of amazing women have copied it. but here's what they all fuck up. And it always disappoints me. They always do it to be sexy. If you see those photos, there's not one where I'm like, later I would do that pose and evening gowns.

Starting point is 01:29:57 But for that, it was like, and it was like kind of like, is this what you want? Yeah. Take it. You've taken everything. Take it. Are you not entertained? That's a whole other perspective.

Starting point is 01:30:16 Yeah. And that's actually, what was happening. That's what was happening. Yes. Then I changed into a different outfit for the sitting down portion of the evening because, you know, you can't sit in that dress really. It's made a beating and you don't want the marks.

Starting point is 01:30:29 But yeah, every girl that they've worn beautiful copies of it or versions of it, but it's always kind of like that. And mine was very, like, direct, which I've really found, and later plays into things, too, of how much it destabilizes people when someone does something with power and will not bend. and when somebody is willing to be disliked. I would imagine... It makes people upset.

Starting point is 01:30:53 Yeah, I would imagine in particular, because you said you were not aware of what the outer kind of sphere... I was also not aware... Respond. Yeah, sorry for stuffing on your lines. I was also not aware that for years that immediately that was like him, like, you know,

Starting point is 01:31:09 like could buy off the press of like, oh my God, the chaos it caused worldwide. I can't describe. So it would be like, imagine, like, a very viral. moment, but like almost analog, like TV, every show, every, every people commenting, like, you're a horror worldwide now. And I was also like, but I was also, my favorite thing was that it was punk as fuck. And that was also who I was.

Starting point is 01:31:34 And I hated that kind of Hollywood thing. But I think, you know, then this thing called Columbine, the first kind of big mass school shooting happened. And he was getting death threats. That's right. Marilyn Manson was. Right. You were getting, we were to get, we were getting bomb.

Starting point is 01:31:48 threats and I went to higher your protective mode. And I'm sorry, just to set the context to everyone, because I do recall that. Was it because there were some lyrics that people misattributed or no? No, what happened? No, I think it was because

Starting point is 01:32:03 those boys that were the shooters were wearing all black. And it was on live television and it went on all day or however long they were held hostage there, those poor kids. And the news media just saw they were all black. He wears all black. He's on the cover

Starting point is 01:32:18 Rolling Stone. He's the most famous person in the world right now, most controversial. They're wearing all black. They must love, ergo, they must love him. In fact, in their diaries, they would hated his music and liked a band called KMFDM. So. It was just because, like, they needed something that, you know, to fill the space in the airtime. Yes. So he was getting death threats, but you in part, you're with him, you're getting death threats. Yeah, I mean, we'd be like, actually like, hiding out funnily enough at the Trump Towers. That's where you hit out Look at that story

Starting point is 01:32:52 Hide in plain sight Oh my gosh In New York So I'm hiding out there But then also you've got the Blowback from the dress So this is 98 This is still

Starting point is 01:33:03 And that went Before Weinstein is convicted of anything Right No About like 15 years 15 years I had to eat a lot of crow

Starting point is 01:33:13 For a lot of years People come up to me on the street Power agents Like from this agency That agency this agency, they'll see me on the street, they're like, getting he had Weinstein scripts lately. Like, people, like, I would go to an event.

Starting point is 01:33:25 It would be like, there'd be famous, famous actresses, and they'd be sat next to me, and they would scoot away. Like, they didn't want to catch one I had. But to the outside world, you're so lucky, you're so lucky. Yes.

Starting point is 01:33:40 Yes. And I'd tell you what, I was part of the outside world. I was part of the outside world saying, you know, at home watching the VMA, Like, wow, look at that. She's winning in life. She can wear nothing out here. Like, she's winning.

Starting point is 01:33:56 She's at the VMAs. Like, I had no idea any of this was happening. It was a lot. There's a lot. A lot going on. Yeah. And then basically all movies were like, I was 1,000% shut out of that world.

Starting point is 01:34:14 But then also worldwide famous at that point. Then I'm really in a pickle. At this point, they're really not actors from movies on TV. It was just kind of starting, but it wasn't really a thing. And there was a show called Charmed that I had never heard of. And at that point, if you were doing very well in the movies, which to the outside world perspective, I'm on the ups, right? And then I get a call from this super producer that I had heard about even growing up,

Starting point is 01:34:41 like doing, like, famous shows, like Dynasty and, like, love all these, like, big hits, right? Kind of corny. but like amazing, you know, glamorous, this and that. And he's calling you with a job offer. Actually, someone told me last year, they said, oh, Aaron Spelling, he knew exactly what he was doing. And he hated those guys in Hollywood. Spelling, yes, yes, Tori Spelling's father. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:35:03 Yes. Power, billionaire. Like before, there were a lot of billionaires, you know, super producer. But he hated the Hollywood film crowd. And he specifically hated Weinstein. And I didn't know this, actually. I didn't know this. And I think this was like a chess move.

Starting point is 01:35:16 against them. And so he offered me a job to replace, to come into a show that had, they'd fired the lead actress. Yes. And so that was a whole, like, hullabaloo that I didn't know anything about because I never watched the show. I'd never heard of it. Again, I'd been just in this other kind of wild world. But I feel like the press, I remember at that time, they were still trying to pit you two against each other. They did that for years. Yeah. For the year before she died, we kind of went on. on this kind of tour together. And she was rad. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 01:35:53 And she was, she was, and she got to tell her truth. She did a podcast called Let Me Be Clear. And she told her story. And it was not, and the person that got her fired, the other co-star that orchestrated the whole thing, really, you know, you understand that in Hollywood, if you are a woman and you get fired from a job, especially twice,

Starting point is 01:36:16 then we're done so. But here's what people don't get. The way I was treated by the media, and I get used to like literally cry. I would get so upset. I didn't understand, like, what did I ever do to these journalists? I didn't understand, like, why? I wouldn't read a ton of it, but you still, even if you don't really actively look, it still comes in or someone randomly tells you, and I'd be like, what the other?

Starting point is 01:36:39 Like, I just used to think, seriously, I must have killed a journalist in my past life. What did I do to be portrayed this way? And it was so opposite of me who was staying at home watching, watching Shirley Temple films and collecting 1930 Shirley Temple dolls. But they would say, and I didn't know that yet, that I was on top of a bar having a strip off with Christina Aguilera. I was like, what? I'm in Hollywood working 17 hours a day on this show that I didn't understand the dynamics of. And a lot of people were like, why is she on television?

Starting point is 01:37:09 But I couldn't say. You know, now there's certainly no shame in it, but there was at that point and there's shame for that. But I think, you know, it was, I also knew I was dead in movies. I was already very famous. What job? What do you do? But, you know, even, I didn't even, even in doing the research, I didn't even piece that together. The fact that you, and you're right, I remember that time.

Starting point is 01:37:30 Film movies, you were a Hollywood movie star. You're right. You don't, TV, quite honestly, was probably beneath the Hollywood. It was? Yeah, it was. So just to, just to make that jump. It was extremely confusing to the public who was like, what? Because nobody did that really.

Starting point is 01:37:51 And I couldn't explain why. But it was, it was. So I understood also psychologically the way I'd been being portrayed in the press. And also after my contribution to it with the dress, that I kind of, so I gained weight. I got my face round and I played very soft. I changed my voice to make it kind of higher pitched and very sweet. And I knew instinctively I had to make America love me. Oh, really?

Starting point is 01:38:16 to keep on that job because they said no show, and it's quite true, has ever survived a major cast change. So then I wound up making the ratings double. And then it went on, and it became at one point the longest running female-led TV show in history. Look at that. Look at that. I mean, it's clearly not only did it resonate at that time, but still.

Starting point is 01:38:37 It's wild. Yeah, to this point. And my take from it is that it was the celebration of our uniqueness. Yes. and that, yeah, everyone wants their uniqueness to be celebrated. Yeah. That was the hardest job in show business at that point, hour-long shows, because you were filming a movie could take two months on average to shoot for a short movie.

Starting point is 01:39:01 We were doing half of a movie in eight days. So a full page of a screenplay on a movie, they would give like a high five. We made it through a full page today on a movie. This were shooting 10 pages a day. And it was just, like, you know, exhausting. But it was also like, it was hard for, me because I'd never done anything that was really super corporate.

Starting point is 01:39:20 The producers once they came up to me and they said, we had to fire your friend Jake because there was one cool guy in the art department, the first season I was on there and he was cool. And he had like wild dreads and we found him on the back of the school bus on this set and he was smoking a joint so we had to fire them. It was these five widodoos and their suits, right? And I just look at them and I just said, and I was like, if I smoke a joint, will you fire me? Can I leave? And they were like, if you go work at a pharmacy, we'll sue you.

Starting point is 01:39:53 No matter what job you get, we'll take your wages for the rest of your life. And then we'll go after your family. I was like, cheers. They would like circle around me to check my weight when I came back, like, from season to season. It was just, I think it was just really inspecting their product, you know. Yes. But that was, you know, I say that was a different time, but was it really? I think they were just like, it was like basically, it was the result.

Starting point is 01:40:19 no, there's no chill with it. It was completely fine to be that way. Like now they have to kind of pay lip service to being different. But I think it is different.

Starting point is 01:40:31 I don't know. People are like, do you think Hollywood's changed? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. But I mean, definitely in a lot of ways, in the sense that it's not really

Starting point is 01:40:39 a major player on the world stage anymore. True, true. Was there welfare on that show? Like a lot of these shows that I do is we have welfare. Was there, you're laughing?

Starting point is 01:40:51 I guess there was no such thing. So there's no such thing as, no. No, there's someone that would come from the most, you know, this union for actors. It should be like, everything all right? And you're like, yeah, okay. Okay, and that was it. But it was all right. There was nothing to report there.

Starting point is 01:41:07 I mean, that was, there's nothing to me other than a really kind of nasty set environment with a co-star that just, I think, you know, kind of, kind of, getting Shannon pushed out and then careful what you need to orchestrate because then you wind up with me. I think it's just, but I was also just like, I don't care. I've dealt with such big problems in my life. Right. Like this kind of like, we're constantly being watched for drama on the set. And I actually didn't understand what had happened before because nobody talked about it when I got there. Like I had no idea what I was walking into.

Starting point is 01:41:40 I did not know that all this like crazy stuff had been happening there, these bad energy, these dark. at the same time creating some what is amazing and super proud of and I can separate this the pride I have in my co-stars for creating and crafting a beautiful magical world for a lot of kids and a lot of adults

Starting point is 01:42:00 and then once I entered for doing the same thing despite what was happening behind the scenes and the fact that that was not transmitted to the outer public win super proud of that it was chaos wherever I went anywhere at that point TV fame was unlike anything you're in people's living rooms and that was a different, a different level.

Starting point is 01:42:20 It's a different and people form a deep attachment. And this thing was a massive global hit. So wherever I went in the world, if I had any time off, chaos, like chased out of the Vatican, people pulling at my hair, like surrounding me. I would just kind of like freeze and just try to like that. And sometimes I would have fun. But most of the time I was terrified. I saw someone posted a clip the other night of me being interviewed. And at this point, I also had to look so mainstream.

Starting point is 01:42:45 I kind of completely forgotten that I was cool. Interesting. I was going here because you specifically said for Charmed, you had to soften your look to be accepted. Because I knew the knives would be out, that the fans would want, they wanted the person, the other character that they loved. So I had to do, I decided to base my character kind of on,

Starting point is 01:43:12 I love Lucy, Lucy O'Bow. What if she was young and in this situation, and just kind of lovable, like, kind of goofy and soft, and pitch my voice higher and be non-threatening because I was scary to people, you know, and did scary weird things. Yes. And there wasn't a lot of that then.

Starting point is 01:43:29 There wasn't a lot of, like, acceptance of, you know, now it's like, not cool. Now it's just like, oh, hi. Hi, Ted. Fine. But at that point, like, still was, like, you know, not the dumb thing. And, you know, during that period,

Starting point is 01:43:43 all of a sudden, like before I would dress myself if I ever had to go to an event or kind of do my own makeup or, you know, things like that. And then during that whole period that I was on that show, it all changed. All of a sudden you had to have a stylist. They had to pay $6,000 a month to a stylist. And they would get clothes sent for you. And then from those clothes that weren't anything you would ever normally wear. And I would say, oh, I like that. And then they'd be like, oh, that's too editorial, meaning too edgy in fashion.

Starting point is 01:44:11 This is red carpet. And then they would put gloves of makeup and a giant helmet hair. And I would just be, and after they would spend hours doing this, then the car's there. And I would look in the mirror and be like, and like, you have to go. There's like, there's no more. I'll be like, and I just got work. And I started, you know, just not even noticing what I looked like. So there's a period after I did a movie.

Starting point is 01:44:33 I met this director. We felt for a year we worked on this screen, like, you know, this role, this character. and we fell in love much before the movie. But all of a sudden, doing the movie, not realizing that the spin doctor who controlled the media was putting all the stuff out that we were like having sex in the trailer and I was like, oh, what? And that we met and falling in love on set.

Starting point is 01:45:01 And I was like, no, this is not how this whole thing went down. Interesting. At all. Am I okay to name the director? Yeah, to Robert. This is Robert Rodriguez, who I think is phenomenal. nominal director. Most of the stories I read is that you two met, not met, but you two began your relationship on set. So that's it. A year before that, him, his separated wife and I were all

Starting point is 01:45:24 sitting in my living room in my house. So no, it did not go down like that at all. Look at that. But I still, I mean, you know, the oldest line in the book that, you know, she lives in a house over here and I live over here and she's much older and we live separate lives. and we work together, but that's it. You know, I didn't realize like the married man, every fucking fake thing in the book. But there was some truth to it, but also not. But I also had never, I think sometimes people come to you

Starting point is 01:45:52 when you're very lost. And at that point, I'd been four and a half years on a show. I was somebody else far more time than I was myself, and obviously had a lifetime of stuff that I had no time to process or deal with. And then it was just survival, an elegant survival, if you will. Yes. With some cool stunts.

Starting point is 01:46:08 And there was a idea. definitely had fun moments for sure. But then I was very proud of that role. But in the middle of filming, he sold it to the only person who distributed films before, he sold it to Luser Weinstein for distribution in the middle of filming.

Starting point is 01:46:25 And I was like, and then basically what happened is I'm down, now going down the red carpet with this loser's arm around me. And they use that to blast the media forever. See? Why, if she'd been assaulted so many years before, would she be okay with

Starting point is 01:46:40 me going down the red carpet with her arm around me. Because... How does that whole... How does that moment happen? Because, all right, he sells the movie. That's one thing. He spun it as, like, we can have our revenge on... We. We can have our revenge on him.

Starting point is 01:46:58 But he, you know, he was also a very... I've never, like, at one point, I actually said to him, like, when... It's like just... The verbal abuse was wild. My father absolutely despised him. Okay. But he bought my sister a car and I didn't, he bought off of it. It's the thing they do.

Starting point is 01:47:17 It's a kind of, it follows a very typical pattern with people that like kind of get isolated from your family and friends. You get isolated from, you know, they tell you they're going, they're controlling your career now or your opportunities and then they do something really diabolical like that. And then spin it is a good thing for you and you're like, you're just stuck. And then you're going to get sued and never work again. if you don't show up for work, what do you do? I started that movie, I don't know stones very well, but I started like at a healthy weight

Starting point is 01:47:48 and I got so thin on that movie just of stress and like like the, it was just like so different than the reality of what was like really happening. And then also I had been, that was the last time I did. I felt like wildly out of control and love with that person. But by the time like that, I was like. And I think at that point. I was just after, you know, we broke out, I was like, I never want to be out of control in love with anybody again.

Starting point is 01:48:18 Like, it was too. I thought I found a safe haven and, um. Wasn't safe. Wasn't safe. The, doing the red carpet, uh, that, uh, I can't imagine you,

Starting point is 01:48:36 because that was the first time that you had then seen, uh, why I, now I've seen him again, um, about, a year after it originally happened, I was at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Starting point is 01:48:51 I see his picture now. I'm so young. So this little round face, I had a little flower behind my ear. And I remember seeing him, and I started, like, shaking. I threw up in a trash can outside. And, like, it was just this panic.

Starting point is 01:49:04 And then I didn't. But, like, you know, believe me, not a day, almost a day went by if I was outside, you know, in Hollywood where people weren't saying stuff to them. Yeah. Or taunting me. or making me feel it while I was extremely famous.

Starting point is 01:49:17 It was, yeah, that juxtaposition was very strange. And I always was like, I know the quality level of work. I should, can, am capable of doing and should be doing. And then right after the Planet Terror, apt movie title, I did a movie called Death Proof with Quentin Tarantino. Yes. It was part of this kind of double feature thing. And Quentin, I guess, to his credit, is the only one.

Starting point is 01:49:44 who actually did say, yes, I knew about it. I knew that that had happened to her. You know, it affected, you know, the way people behind the scenes treated me, but also, and I think Shannon Doherty could speak to this, or spoke to this. Like, it affected how, when the media runs a narrative about you, it's like how the person at the grocery store treats you, how the random man who thinks he can touch you can treat you, because you're portrayed a certain way, how people are like,

Starting point is 01:50:13 oh, she must be like this. So like anywhere, it was like, it was very, it was like operating in the world with this whole fake construct of you are. So I just stopped trying. I just was like, I did feel alive. I had friends in Berlin. I had friends in other countries.

Starting point is 01:50:27 And when I went there, I could feel like I was like a real person. Yes. You know what's so incredibly sad, though, is that this is now, so this person that we're talking about here is so foreign to 13-year-old. 12-year-old, 10-year-old, Rosa. So lost.

Starting point is 01:50:48 Yes. So lost. Yes. What the allegations were against children of God are not bad. A lot of these are horrific. But the way that you're describing what's happening to you in Hollywood, if you could argue, it's just as horrific. You know, it's just as it's similar to a cult, you know, as we started to describe the characteristics of a cult. And especially when I was looking at it, charismatic, manipulation, coercion, et cetera.

Starting point is 01:51:21 So I see the parallels. I see it. And you now fall, find yourself. And yet again another one. So then I'm on the Tarantino movie, and it was very much that. Okay. That's when it was like I was on that set and I would just be seeing things and like, I was just like, ugh, the arrogance and the, I just was like, it was almost like this alarm was going off in my head.

Starting point is 01:51:49 And it was like me trying to get back into me. And it was like, wake up. And I would be in, take breaks, you know, be sitting there between camera setups and it'd be like, this alarm. And I was just like kind of like so zombieed at that point. It was like, wake up, wake up. You hate this. Wake up. You don't like this.

Starting point is 01:52:04 Wake up. And I was like. And then, you know, I went through a few years. after that where I, uh, I, I, I, I woke up. And when I woke up, I woke up, I think to years and years suppressed anger and very much put the, exactly as you did, put it together, that this was far worse than the cult I grew up. And the thing is, movements don't happen in a vacuum. It's like, now all of a sudden you wake up one day and like, what? Like, there has to be events and someone like really shaking the power structure from the ground.

Starting point is 01:52:40 My thing, I called it, I even trademarked it, called the Cultural Reset. The Cultural Reset, I just thought not, like, and I always thought my thing was I want to glitch the Matrix. I want to disrupt the timeline somehow, some way. But I knew I had to bide my time. And. Oh, gosh, talk about time. So is that 20 years? Over.

Starting point is 01:53:06 Over 20 years. And he's, you know, yeah, over 20 years. So then I played at that point the stories with NBC and the New York Times. And for one year, I'm managing, like, helping the New York Times find sources of women to talk, giving them, getting them documents, getting playing. And for quite a while, I knew what I know is, like, top male egos at the top of media empires. So I played these two guys in a war with each other because I knew nobody's going to be like, you know, we need to do the right thing and help out society.

Starting point is 01:53:41 No, but I can get them in a pissing contest. And then I can get them too deep into it, invested in it, that they can't back out. And the way I did it was for two years in advance of talking to them, I started making things go viral every three weeks. And how I would do it is I would write an open letter, dear Hollywood, dear this company, dear this, dear whatever it was. And I would basically this, and I would publish it on Twitter. And within the night, it would go viral in the U.S., then it would hit Europe, then it would go to Asia and circle back around it. What it really was was me rattling the cage of the power structure. And they were like, what the, and it was really someone from inside the henhouse.

Starting point is 01:54:17 Yes. It was very, very, it was very planned. At that point, what happened was they were, they're really running with the Trump, grabbing by the pussy all over the media. And I thought, ah, this is a good time. They painted themselves as so, like, upright. And all the people in Hollywood were just up in arms about Trump and, like, the audio tape. And I was like, oh, you think that's bad.

Starting point is 01:54:42 I didn't know, like, you know, the level of the other stuff there or wherever either. But I was like, oh, you think that's really bad? Guess what? Okay. So I was doing all these things simultaneously, setting up the strategy, setting up the structure, pretending I had a massive army. It was just me. My crazy ass smoking a joint at night being like, like, oh.

Starting point is 01:55:00 And just pushing it through. Next thing I know, I'm the poster girl for a movement that I was like, well, okay, I thought it was a communication tool. I've always been language-based. I was like, oh, that's cool. There's never been a good way to talk about this before. You don't have to get, you know, drunk and get sad and say something to somebody. And you could just say, did this happen to me too? Okay, now I know the level of your pain and what you've been through.

Starting point is 01:55:32 Now we can just move on with our lot, you know. We don't have to go. deep into it. I thought as a communication tool, this is genius. There's a big company called E, and they produced the Kardashians show at that time. That was on them. And I thought, oh, counter-programming. I'll hire, I'll get the Kardashian producers to produce a documentary on me. And the way I sold it was, I went there and I was like, in three weeks, I have a book, an album called Planet Nine. This is coming out. I'm giving a major speech here. And this and that, I didn't tell them what it was. They never would have agreed. And they were like, oh, my God,

Starting point is 01:56:02 amazing. And the next thing they know, they're basically in real time shooting this documentary we titled Citizen Rose. It's on Amazon. And in real time, this whole situation unfolding. And I just kind of knew I needed someone as well as possible to document it because it was, there was no way that I could, it was just. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, insane. It's, yeah, that's the best word to describe. Insane. It's insane. It was insane. Cut two months later, I, um, replace, they have me, replace Senator Bernie Sanders as the keynotes. These people are like, why is he opening the women's March convention in Detroit?

Starting point is 01:56:47 So they got me. I had to give this giant speech as televised globally. They've scrubbed a lot of it from the internet, as I know. So as I step on the stage, I'm like, what are you going to do? I went and I just like this portal lifted off my head. And I gave a speech, it was so intense, so. off the cup, I had these 20 or 30,000 women standing on their feet with their entire fist race in the air.

Starting point is 01:57:09 And then by the time I was in the car, breaking news, Rose McGowan being, going to be arrested on drug charges. She had cocaine in her wallet. I was like I smoked a lot of weed. But, and I've certainly done that. But not on that plane, not to there, not that day. Why would I... Anyway, beyond that, I was like, the fuck.

Starting point is 01:57:35 And so it was kind of like this, lift it up and cut it down. I saw the kind of whole orchestration. And I'm like, got to be kidding me. So he was on trial. At the same time, I was on trial. And so it turned out, like, and what was weird was that I'd already done a movie set, like, in a courthouse. I'd already been in that seat. I'd already heard, said these lines.

Starting point is 01:57:56 But now it's for real. The lawyer that I paid all this money to disappeared. the day before I had to appear because he was, you know, all of it. So I hired this small town attorney from across the street. It just felt like this entire, again, like that farce, like everybody there, everybody single person in there at the highest level, 99.9% paid off to be there and do this. So we're all acting. They're all acting.

Starting point is 01:58:24 What were you facing? What was the criminal? 10 years. 10 years. I'm in this courthouse and I'm just like, and actually at that point, it just, I had wanted to look like, you know, I just left my body. It was, and it was a small voice inside of me that just said, can someone call cut?

Starting point is 01:58:47 Can someone just say cut? Because I was like, this is all theater. Can someone just please say cut? This is, this is so profound because this is happening simultaneous to. Someone who is, as I can 1,000 people like, did somebody verify it? I'm like, my body verified it. I was there. They were there.

Starting point is 01:59:19 Right. And nobody would endure. And so many of that narrative, she's doing it to get famous. I'm like, bitch, I was famous. What the hell are you talking about? In the case, in your court case, what then happens? I wear this really sick jacket. Okay.

Starting point is 01:59:36 archival, new glare in the 80s, these kind of power shoulders, just like kind of fuchsia pink, and it has these like slashes in it, like a panther cut it. And the buttons are like kind of like a panther's claws. And I was like, let's go, bitches. And they let me, they let this bitch go. I don't know what it was. Basically I had to sign something. I said, yes, I'm guilty, but I'm not guilty.

Starting point is 01:59:59 I don't know. I don't know what the, but the small town lawyer did better for me the guy that were, than the guy that ran off of 200K. Look at that. And so a lot of times I get judged by like, she said something like this during this period or she said something like that. I'm like, I was obviously imperfect. I don't know who could have navigated all that with no real help. Everybody that I was working with that was taking money from me or making money from anything I was doing was like verified later as being like double agents with him and his group that it was not just him.

Starting point is 02:00:34 It was like all the people at the highest levels. The woman that was one of the biggest women's rights lawyers in California, a very famous one, her daughter, whom I've never met, who represented all these women going after CEOs for this or that, these poor women that get ensnared by them. And then she was secretly working with him to destroy me in the media, like the document that she sent him to audition for the job, if you will. Look at this. I know the Rose McGowan's of this world, something like I'll be only so. happy to destroy her type, you know, paraphrasing. Wild. You know what's poetic about this, though, is that in one part of the world, here you are getting off with the small town attorney.

Starting point is 02:01:16 Right. Right. On the other side, he doesn't get off with the big-time attorneys. Was there a moment where you saw the tide begin to shift, the public opinion tide begin to shift? Or not, was there a moment where you saw it? because clearly you saw it, but how did you feel when public opinion began to shift on Harvey Weinstein? I don't know.

Starting point is 02:01:44 See, that was also, again, for me, like on the ground, on the streets. I went to India during that time. I was here. I would walk down the street. I remember being by the barbican and this homeless guy, like, giving me a salute. And I keep going all over the world. Keep going. Keep going. But from the fancy people at the highest levels or the famous people or culture people, like, no, that was crickets or character assassination of me.

Starting point is 02:02:11 But the people on the street worldwide, yes, they saw. They understood. But even at this day? I don't know. I opted out. I stopped. I was just like, peace. And then I just started seeing how many were profiting from kind of.

Starting point is 02:02:31 I consider it my pro bono, my free work on behalf of kind of society in a way. All right. And profiting how so? Like, I did a favor and was a guest on a podcast when the verdict came out that he was, that Loser Weinstein was guilty. I didn't know there were cameras in there. And that show had already been sold to HBO as a series. Oh, my goodness. That person profited.

Starting point is 02:02:54 My brother-in-law and my sister were at my house in Los Angeles. He came out of the bathroom at my house. three in the morning, naked. And he's like, there's a woman standing there on all black. And she's holding computer drives in her hand. There was 125 pages of my book stolen before it was published. And again, the book didn't really have anything to do with him. He was one of the stories, but to illustrate a different point.

Starting point is 02:03:19 And she said, oh, I'm her assistant. She needed some drives. And there was like a black car outside, the lights off, an SUV that they're all blacked out. And she was wearing like, like some movie, like a full on cat suit kind of thing while I was writing my book towards the end of it. And while I was working so hard playing like this media empire of this media empire to get the story done, I was also in fake negotiations to buy my silence, to not put out my book. But I was like, my book doesn't really have that much to do with you. And I'm not even naming you in it because your ugly name. And this was negotiations with him.

Starting point is 02:03:59 So he was what, offering you? Through his lawyer, but my lawyer, who I had to pay, I believe, was $985 an hour or two, was also secretly working with him. So it was all. I see. I see. And he thought there was a lot of your book that was about him. So the idea was...

Starting point is 02:04:15 I mean, they got the drives, so they got that one part. And I guess that freaked him out enough. But I don't know why that was any worse than, like, really the articles, or the other women, the other brave women that came forward with... I was like, was like, I didn't. want in fact they the Harper Collins had moved my um time of the release up I was supposed to be later and I was like no I wanted breathing room from the trial but they matched it together right for the publicity I guess yeah uh I have to to state this that Harvey Weinstein is currently serving

Starting point is 02:04:47 16 years in prison for three counts of rape in California and he's currently 73 do you believe justice was served I would love to see a picture of him in prison. I suspect he's been in a mansion in Connecticut. That's my theory. I don't know if he's ever spent a day in prison. Oh, wow. Hollywood, baby.

Starting point is 02:05:16 I don't know. Maybe. I mean, you blew my mind on that because, yeah, I haven't seen one. Yeah, not that I can recall. I haven't seen one. I really would have loved, I would love to still have some kind of career to be able to do and do something in the arts. and something creative again, I've never, for now the majority of my, more of my life than not,

Starting point is 02:05:40 have had this warthog from hell on my back. And buying off public's perception of me, maybe not everybody would like me if they met me. That's fine. But I think you might. Yes. I think you might. Yes. What do you think the public's perception is of you?

Starting point is 02:05:56 I mean, I would be confused. There are, you know, people that are kind of like deep special interests that, really get kind of, they've been with me all along and connect, and there's some really beautiful and amazing humans out there. I think, you know, there's, and this is also totally fine, too, the crowd that just loves some of the movies and things that I've done and been in, which, like, once they lay them out, I'm like, oh, that's actually pretty impressive. They just want to love those characters in that fictional world. I love that, too. That's great. Keep that safe space. I think, you know, when I walk in somewhere, like, oh, that's the Me Too woman. I'm like,

Starting point is 02:06:39 yo, I thought it was a language tool, not like this. Once I really realized that it was really, I was being used to kind of cause chaos between men and women. Like on a media level, like, use me as the thing, like the focal point of people's dislike for societal change. That wasn't my thing. And I always said that from the beginning. That was something that, by definition, it happened to me. So what I did was bounce. You said, I'm gone.

Starting point is 02:07:10 I was like... And not just gone from Hollywood. I'm gone from the United States. I just thought... My father lived for many, many years, over 30 years on the west coast of Mexico. And so I've been going there since, you know, it was like 17. I went to the jungle.

Starting point is 02:07:27 I went to the jungle ocean. and I kind of thought, and then COVID hit. Okay. And I thought, I was just in a complete, at that point, I wanted a different reality. I didn't want anything to do with Rose McGowan. For one year, 2020 was actually, I know it was really hard and horrible for a lot of people. That was actually the best year of my life. Was it?

Starting point is 02:07:50 Because, as an adult, because I had love, I had friends there, I had my little dog, I was on a beach, and nobody could travel there for quite a a while, I was actually sick. Yeah. So then by the end of 2021... I got wildly sick, but I didn't know in what way. And I didn't know what was happening to me. My mind

Starting point is 02:08:15 was compromised. I was glitching. I was like losing the ability to speak. The beauty that I'd kind of always had was gone. And I was like just that wasn't, I was a different, any sound, the sound of my dog's tag could make me fall to the ground and scream and rock. Everything hurt, like my skin, everything.

Starting point is 02:08:35 And I looked kind of like, honestly, end stage AIDS patient. And I then got something. I noticed that, like, all of a sudden I had, my bank account had been wiped out. My identity from the credit system in the U.S. has gone. They don't exist. Because that's a very typical boring whistleblower revenge tactics, right? It's like, that's the thing. They're so boring.

Starting point is 02:08:58 Trilly. But you're, so no bank account? No, I had $60. I was like, after working for years and years and years, they wiped that. But what did really help me, my former co-star, Holly Marie Combs, she said, come and do a Comic-Con. And I looked terrible at this point. I was like gone. I was a lot better than I had been, but I was still not really, my processor was very, very slow.

Starting point is 02:09:24 And I was kind of like, I just looked kind of shell-shocked. was. And I started doing these even though I couldn't have an, I was signing autographs and meeting people. And that, every 45 seconds or minute, a different person, a sweet person with just kind of a smiley face and happy that they're, you know, in their place where they feel safe, you know, where they get to be like kind of their special interest or dress how they want and it's like a safe zone for them, but also they're just transmitting kind of generally love to me. And these people, sweet, loving nerds held me up.

Starting point is 02:10:06 And enough money that I could get some access to some medicine that has helped me somewhat, but really the indigenous stuff helped me the most. You could see how your early life prepared you for the next chapters, you know, of your life. if you can be prepared. There were some surprises and curbles. For what happened.

Starting point is 02:10:28 And who really brought me back as this beautiful man from London, from South London. From South London. Kid Booky. I'd never heard of him. I would start, I would go on Instagram

Starting point is 02:10:40 and I would kind of, they locked me out of my Facebook. They locked me out of X, whatever. And I'm like, okay. But I still had Instagram. So I would kind of watch people. And I started, I'd never really done that I would usually just post and then, but then I kind of stopped. And he messaged me. It's like

Starting point is 02:10:58 over about a year ago now. And I didn't know anything about him for something. I don't know why I actually engaged and responded. And it just somehow landed in my broken little brain. And he said, I would like to, you know, collaborate with you. And I was like, I knew he wasn't from any of the worlds I'd occupy his spaces before. So that felt safe. And I slowly started communicating. And I slowly started communicating with him. And then he sent me the track, but it wasn't until I was, I was, it was this summer, I was like, okay,

Starting point is 02:11:31 I had not done anything, I had written anything, I hadn't even been able to barely kind of write post. I couldn't, my brain stopped functioning. Nothing creatively. At all. I said, okay, I come hell or high water, I'll get there, and I did, and I got, by August, I got to that South London

Starting point is 02:11:47 studio. And I got to the studio and I realized, I had been listening to his half of the track that he'd already recorded his part of. I had no words that came to me. And I was so scared. I was so scared. And I said, give me 10 minutes.

Starting point is 02:12:05 And I went and I go, I need a piece of paper. And I found an old manual for engineering. And I ripped out a page of it. And I just went like, please, like, you know, God of creativity, open the portal, whatever. I was like, help me. And all of a sudden, it's just like, and like what I want to say. And what I wanted to say was how really it's my feelings for the world and people out there. Because they used to wonder for so long.

Starting point is 02:12:29 When I was on TV, I was like, or in the movies, I was like, who's on the other side of the screen? I really would like to meet them. We're just talked about them as fans or blocks or audience members or this box office or that. But these are like, who's there? Because I'm trapped behind here with this, but I always was so curious about all these other lives. And I finally, in these past few years, like being able physically strong enough bit by bit to do these comicons and to connect with people, I've gotten to meet a great bunch of these people. And it's been like, honestly, how you're kind of intertwined with their lives and their families and what they've gone through or just that they like you and they think that's cool. All of is fantastic.

Starting point is 02:13:12 I am so proud of this track. Yes. And it wasn't until I got to the sea that day. I actually said, oh, by the way, what is this track called? because I was like, wait, it just said track. And he said, oh, it's called Rose McGowan. And since you agreed, it's Rose McGowan featuring Rose McGowan. Which I have to say, I have heard.

Starting point is 02:13:33 I am like so grateful that you heard it. It is, it is truly, truly. We were just talking to Kid Booky a second to go off camera. I think it's exceptional. And all of my crew, we thought it was. I mean, that's high bar. We thought it was it is right. And you know what I think, what I love so much about it is that,

Starting point is 02:13:51 It is unexpected. To me, it's unexpected. And that's the most pleasant. Those are some of the most pleasant things in life, I think, when it's unexpected, you get that nice treat. That's exactly what it is. There's no machine behind it. There's no, like, setting anything up.

Starting point is 02:14:07 It was just, like, through space and time and technology and thought, we connected on some frequency. And I heard his call, and I answered. And you delivered. But it sounds like he did more for you than, put you on a track. Oh, yeah, I know. He's opened up.

Starting point is 02:14:26 Would you say that he's opened up your creativity again? Gave me the space for, and safety and love for it to even come out. What would you tell, because we talked about 12-year-old. So I can't get that image out now, 12-year-old, all in black. I think she was seeing her future. What would you, she was sitting on a bee. in that photo that you showed me. So 12-year-old Rose, what would you, if we can go back,

Starting point is 02:14:59 could sit next to her on that beach, what would you tell her? That not just remember who you are, the bookie said this to me, now it's time to embody who you are. And that Rosa, being soft, has value. And to find people that you can be around, that you don't have to wear the hard shell, for that if your body starts not liking a situation, listen to it. Don't force it to be in situations. Or that, you know, you might get diagnosed with the tism, with autism, but you're going to hang up

Starting point is 02:15:40 on the guy before he gives you the final diagnosis because you don't like labels. And it explains a lot about how you were and why you didn't understand how regular society operated and why our value system was different. And you really actually might be 73,312. And that's cool, too. Yes. Good on you. Keep singing.

Starting point is 02:16:01 It's been a real honor of Paul C. Brunson. I'll tell you what. It has been, this has been a blessing. We are not over yet. We're just about over. But we are not over yet. I think your, the fullness of the story to me is so, It's like what you've done is you've taken all these different pieces of this puzzle and you've put it all together for me now and I finally get it and I'll say I think I was like millions of of us who were fans who watched from the outside and had no idea what you were going through and

Starting point is 02:16:38 And, oh, God, I wish we did. You know, I will say that what you have shown through your story is not just resilience, not just courage, but pure strength. And I even think back to, I keep going back to 12-year-old you. I don't know why I keep gravitating to 12-year-old you. And I keep wanting to call you Rosa at 12. I would love to be able to go by my real name. and I don't know how to make that shift. I said that to someone and they're like,

Starting point is 02:17:12 it's too late for you now. You can't do that. And I thought, but that's my name. But is it? I would imagine in Mexico, what did they call? Oh, everyone calls me Rosa. They call you Rosa. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 02:17:19 You are Rosa. My name is Rosa Ariana. That is that. That is you. I might just have to call you Rosa. I would really greatly appreciate it. The more people call me Rosa, the happier I could be.

Starting point is 02:17:30 Look at that. Because then I can figure out how to actually connect, like you said, all the puzzle pieces together. And I'm proud of Rose Mesa. gallon but that is a that's a shell that um i can like put up and be like job well done yes we did good kid but we can be us now and maybe we confuse that'll happen on the stage play all right i love it

Starting point is 02:17:52 final question everyone gets it that is you've had incredible incredible incredible conversations throughout your life if you can think about the one that is the most memorable who was it with and what did you learn who was it with and what did you learn who was it with and what did I learned. Okay, it was with a tree. Okay. That's, you're the first person. Probably. To ever say, could be the last word to do it ever say is with the tree, but I hear you though. Because it was after a hurricane where I live. And there's these beautiful sacred trees to the Maya called Seba, C-E-I-B-A. And there's a beautiful story about them like this, but I'd only seen them from the top and they grow together, these lovers intertwined, right? Massive. and their roots were said to go down to the underworld to absorb the darkness and transmit it to light on top.

Starting point is 02:18:53 And after, at this hurricane, a giant one, like the size of the base is like the size of the studio, is completely out of the earth. And as I'd suspected, all their roots talked to each other. And I sat there quite sad and upset that it had been uprooted. and I know this sounds, but as we've, you know, but it said it was always meant to be this story. And the roots down there were all holding on. And you know what? The lights on top.

Starting point is 02:19:26 Except for it said it in Spanish. Okay. But beautiful in English and very poetic as well. I've greatly appreciated this. I am truly honored that. you came and I'm very very excited about the next chapters plural I think that what you have amassed in terms of lived experiences what most people will never will never participate in they'll never realize but all of that I have to believe is for

Starting point is 02:20:02 something and what you've done thus far you can see the results of it but I think what is coming, the return is going to be even greater. So I cannot wait. I cannot wait. And from this moment on, you forever will be Rosa. Rosa. I think some of actually what you said might be some of the most important connections, dot connections that I hadn't made. So thinking about yes, the tree, I think some of what you said put a context for certain things that I've gone through.

Starting point is 02:20:36 And it was the final dot connection I needed. to perceive it and understand it. So I think it might be you, Paul C. Brunson. And I thank you for that. Well, I thank you. I thank you. You are beyond a superstar. Beyond a superstar. My honor.

Starting point is 02:20:54 Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Rose McApe. Rosa, she always can see the beauty in the moment. I think that is such an impressive characteristic to embody. It is something we can all learn. from and that is it's not just seeing the silver lining but it's actually taking a moment to

Starting point is 02:21:14 appreciate what it is that you do have and i think it's beautiful i didn't realize that she was living under life-threatening conditions and that's my ignorance i should have known if you're going against the machine that there's repercussions living under this threat but still continued still persevered. That's power. We could do a podcast series just on year 13 to 14 of her life.

Starting point is 02:21:45 And what she told us, I'm sure we didn't even have the full, full, full details on. But you think of the resilience that someone has to, you know, someone must possess

Starting point is 02:21:57 in order to be able to live through what she's lived through and then see the beauty and then pull the lessons. You know, you think, about at the, when I asked her about what she would tell the 12 year old, in essence, she's saying, see the beauty in life. She didn't say anything about don't go to Hollywood, don't, you know,

Starting point is 02:22:17 engage with these people, don't, it was more so just open up your eyes to the beauty of the world. Especially with, I think, Gen Z, Gen Alpha that my boys are a part of, there's a real celebration against authenticity, speaking truth to power, and that is Rose McGowan. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling.

Starting point is 02:23:03 Ross, work your magic. Hey, Mama, thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi, Ma, thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom, happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost,

Starting point is 02:23:25 exclusively at the UPS store U.S. retail locations. Visit the UPS store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and we'll get your gratitude there on time.

We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - Rose McGowan “Hollywood Was Worse Than The Cult I Escaped”

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