Posters Claiming Meryl Streep Was Aware of Harvey Weinstein Allegations Pop up Around Los Angeles

Posters Claiming Meryl Streep Was Aware of Harvey Weinstein Allegations Pop up Around Los Angeles
Actress Meryl Streep with producer Harvey Weinstein at the DGA Theater on Jan. 5, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
John Smithies
12/20/2017
Updated:
9/26/2019

Posters of Meryl Streep with the words “She knew” across her eyes have been popping up in Los Angeles.

The posters depict Streep, 68, next to Harvey Weinstein and seem intended to contradict the actress’s claims that she didn’t know about the recently disgraced movie mogul’s alleged sexual misconduct.

Posters have been found in several places in Los Angeles, including outside Streep’s home, with photos posted to social media.

Streep has released a statement saying she “did not know about Weinstein’s crimes.”

“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 Fox News.

It was a response to tweets from actress Rose McGowan, who has been very vocal in criticizing both Streep and other women who intended to wear black to the Golden Globes as a kind of silent protest of sexual misconduct in the movie industry.

McGowan’s tweet, which has since been deleted, said: “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 change. I despise your hypocrisy.”

McGowan alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 1997. The mogul has been accused of sexual assault by more than 75 people, with more still coming forward. He is now under investigation in four cities.

Streep issued a statement to HuffPost addressing McGowan’s tweet.

“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,” she said.

Streep told Fox News that Weinstein had never made sexual advances toward her.

“HW was not a filmmaker; he was often a producer, primarily a marketer of films made by other people---some of them great, some not great,” she said.

“But not every actor, actress, and director who made films that HW distributed knew he abused women, or that he raped Rose in the 90s, other women before and others after, until they told us. We did not know that womens’ silence was purchased by him and his enablers,” Streep said.