For years now, actress Rose McGowan has been fiercely crusading against sexism in Hollywood, gaining attention with a bridge-burning Twitter post last June, where she called out a casting notice for an Adam Sandler movie that instructed actresses to wear form-fitting leggings, push-up bras, and cleavage-baring tank tops when auditioning for a part. At the time, McGowan noted, “I just want to make it better for the next girl coming after me, that she doesn’t have to sell her body and soul just because she wants to be a creative person. That isn’t the fine that you pay at the gate.”
Now—utilizing a hashtag that’s been reignited in the wake of allegations levied against presidential candidate Donald Trump—McGowan has revealed her own history with sexual assault, at the hands of an unnamed Hollywood studio head.
This isn’t the first time McGowan has alluded to a history of being sexually assaulted. In a Buzzfeed profile from 2015, the actress commented on the Bill Cosby rape allegations, saying, “You are taking part of someone’s soul. It’s happened to me. It alters the course of your life; it’s altered the course of my life.” The profile was intended to promote McGowan’s short film Dawn, about a young woman lured into a dangerous situation by a seemingly well-intentioned man.