Following a heated spat at a bookstore talk for her new memoir "Brave," Rose McGowan has decided to cancel all of her upcoming appearances. McGowan, a Harvey Weinstein accuser, was promoting her book at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan when a transgender woman asked her about the comments she had made about RuPaul’s “What’s the Tee?” podcast last summer.
The woman, later identified as activist Andi Dier, confronted McGowan and said, "Trans women are dying, and you said that we, as trans women, are not like regular women. We get raped more often. We go through domestic violence more often. There was a trans woman killed here a few blocks [away]. I have been followed home …"
McGowan immediately responded and said, "Hold on. So am I.. We are the same. My point was, we are the same. There’s an entire show called ID channel, a network, dedicated to women getting abused, murdered, sexualized, violated, and you’re a part of that, too, sister. It’s the same."
Dier then questioned what McGowan had done for transgender women. McGowan told the woman not to label her. “I do not subscribe to your rules. I do not subscribe to your language. You will not put labels on me or anybody. Step the f–k back. What I do for the f–king world and you should be f–king grateful. Shut the f–k up.”
The woman was then escorted out by security.
In response to what turned into a heated exchange, McGowan tweeted on Friday, "I am canceling upcoming public appearances because I have given enough. I have given beauty, in return, I was VERBALLY ASSAULTED for two full minutes @BNBuzz by an actor paid to verbally assault a woman who has been terrorized by your system. And no ONE in that room did anything."
The actress and activist continued, "And everyone from my publicists, assistants, managers and every person sitting in their chairs frozen by their weakness, a weakness called COMPLICITY. The truth is you all failed me. Again. And again. And again."
On Thursday, McGowan told Ronan Farrow during a panel discussion at 92Y that the woman was a plant from Weinstein's camp and she fears being killed. “Assassination … I know my life, and I know my reality, and I know that people like me get killed.” A rep for Weinstein told Page Six on Friday that this claim is false. The rep said, "No one is monitoring her whereabouts. It’s unfortunate that she is choosing to marginalize a community that is fighting to have their voice heard by claiming that the individual was a ‘plant’ of my client. It’s simply untrue and disrespectful to the transgender community.”
