Veteran actor Meryl Streep has responded to Rose McGowan’s critical remarks against herself and other actors who plan to protest sexual harassment by wearing black to this year’s Golden Globes.
McGowan had called out Streep on Sunday for working with producer Harvey Weinstein despite his reputation as a sexual predator and condemned their form of protest.
In her response, Streep said she “wasn’t deliberately silent” in Weinstein’s treatment of women in Hollywood because she did not know it was happening.
“It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others. I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening,” Streep said in a statement to the Huffington Post.
The 68-year-old actor added that not everyone who worked with Weinstein knew the depth of accusations against him.