Meryl Streep Responds to Rose McGowan: 'It Hurt to Be Attacked By Rose'

Meryl Streep is speaking out to respond to Rose McGowan, who blasted the Oscar-winning actress for “hypocrisy” amid the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

McGowan seems to believe that Meryl, and other actresses who worked with Weinstein, knew about his alleged crimes and behavior. She called them hypocrites for planning on wearing black to the upcoming Golden Globes as a sign of a silent protest.

“Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @goldenglobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real chance. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa,” Rose wrote in a deleted tweet.

Meryl wrote a lengthy statement, which was sent to the Huffington Post.

“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,” Meryl said. “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.”

Click inside to read more of Meryl’s statement…

“Rose assumed and broadcast something untrue about me, and I wanted to let her know the truth. Through friends who know her, I got my home phone number to her the minute I read the headlines. I sat by that phone all day yesterday and this morning, hoping to express both my deep respect for her and others’ bravery in exposing the monsters among us, and my sympathy for the untold, ongoing pain she suffers. No one can bring back what entitled bosses like Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, and HW took from the women who endured attacks on their bodies and their ability to make a living.. And I hoped that she would give me a hearing. She did not, but I hope she reads this,” she said.

“I am truly sorry she sees me as an adversary, because we are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe: a status quo that wants so badly to return to the bad old days, the old ways where women were used, abused and refused entry into the decision-making, top levels of the industry. That’s where the cover-ups convene. Those rooms must be disinfected, and integrated, before anything even begins to change,” Meryl added.

Read the full statement now on HuffingtonPost.com.