Rose McGowan says people who voted for President Donald Trump are victims of the same “brainwashing” that affects women who are complicit in helping to cover up sexual misconduct crimes.
The 44-year-old actress and outspoken activist against sexual assault weighed in on the ongoing misconduct scandal plaguing Hollywood and the 2016 presidential election in an hour-long interview with queer digital media network Revry, excerpts of which were released this week.
“I think it’s cult brainwashing,” McGowan told interviewer and transgender activist Ashlee Marie Preston when asked why some women would go to considerable effort to protect or defend sexual predators.
“People say, ‘Oh, it’s so weird how you grew up, you were in a cult,’ and I say, ‘I think it’s really weird how you live in a cult,’ ” McGowan added. “Let’s take Trump voters. Cult, obviously. We all know that. Because it doesn’t benefit them, largely.”
McGowan — a vocal activist in the #MeToo movement who has accused disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein of rape — went on to say she believes complicity is “deeply engrained in being polite.”
“Some people are just bad people, some people are just bad humans. But I think largely, if you’re doing something that does not benefit you, like voting against your interests, or helping rapists rape, you have to be brainwashed into that position,” she added. “They say white women voted for Trump, but I’m like, married white women. Married married married. Look at that equation. That’s something most people don’t point out.”
The interview with Revry was McGowan’s first media appearance after she’d previously scrapped all public engagements following a shouting match she had with a transgender activist at a book signing this month.
The actress has been highly critical of Trump in the past. During the campaign, McGowan penned an open letter to mainstream media outlets imploring them to stop covering the then-candidate, calling him a “cancer.”
McGowan has been on a book tour in recent weeks to promote her autobiography, Brave, about her life in the wake of the allegations against Weinstein. The actress is also starring in a E! reality series, Citizen Rose.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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