- Rose McGowan says she doubts Harvey Weinstein has ever truly been in prison.
- Weinstein is serving a 16-year sentence and faces additional time after a New York retrial.
- McGowan alleges Hollywood protected Weinstein for decades, likening it to a cult.
- She described Weinstein as a “thug” rather than a glamorous power broker.
- McGowan now lives in Mexico and hopes to return to creative work in the future.
Rose McGowan has voiced deep skepticism about whether disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has ever truly experienced life behind bars, despite his multiple convictions for rape and sexual assault. Speaking candidly on Paul C. Brunson’s We Need To Talk podcast, the actress and longtime activist suggested that Weinstein may be serving his sentence in comfort rather than confinement.
“I would love to see a picture of him in prison,” McGowan said. “I suspect he’s been in a mansion in Connecticut. That’s my theory.” While acknowledging she has no proof, McGowan questioned whether Weinstein, who once wielded immense influence in Hollywood, has spent “a day in prison at all.”
Weinstein is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence following convictions related to rape and sexual assault and is facing additional incarceration after being convicted again in a New York retrial last year. However, McGowan’s comments reflect a broader mistrust of how powerful figures are treated by the justice system, particularly when wealth and influence are involved.
McGowan was one of the most prominent voices to come forward when allegations against Weinstein surfaced in 2017, igniting the #MeToo movement and exposing widespread abuse within the entertainment industry. She has accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting her at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 and described him not as a refined power broker but as a brute.
“I think he was a thug,” she said. “Not the Mafia boss of the cool kind with the suit, like a Marlon Brando Godfather type, but more like a street thug.”
She also drew a stark comparison between Hollywood’s long-standing protection of Weinstein and her own upbringing in the Children of God cult, arguing that the industry treated him as untouchable. “They calculated that he was thanked more times than God at the Oscars,” McGowan said. “Harvey Weinstein was their god. This was far worse than the cult I grew up in.”
Since leaving Hollywood during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, McGowan has been living in Mexico, a move she described as a search for peace and distance from an industry that had emotionally exhausted her. She has spoken openly about wanting silence after years of public advocacy and constant scrutiny.
“I just wanted to listen,” she said in a previous appearance at a convention panel. “I wanted silence, and I wanted to listen more than I wanted to talk.”
Despite stepping away, McGowan has not abandoned her creative ambitions. She has expressed hope that she may one day return to acting or artistic work, saying she still longs to create and contribute meaningfully to the arts.
For McGowan, however, the question of accountability remains unresolved. Her doubts about Weinstein’s imprisonment underscore her broader belief that justice often looks different for the powerful—a concern that continues to fuel her outspoken criticism of Hollywood and the systems that once protected its most abusive figures.
