Meryl Streep Reacts To Rose McGowan Insults: 'I Wasn’t Deliberately Silent. I Didn’t Know.'

Meryl Streep is firing back at Rose McGowan after the latter implied the Oscar-winning actress knew about Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconducts. “Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @goldenglobes in a silent protest," McGowan wrote in a now deleted tweet. "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.”

“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 in a statement posted by The Huffington Post. “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.”

“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.

Amber Tamblyn also came to Meryl's defense by calling out McGowen for shaming her in her protest. "Rose McGowan is a friend and while I support her kind of movement, I do not support any woman (or man) shaming or taunting the movements of other women who are trying to create change. Telling us to all wear Marchesa? This is beneath you, Rose," Tamblyn wrote in the first of a series of tweets.

She also added: "You don’t have to support and stand with us, but we stand and support you. You may take below the belt shots at us but we will not take them at you in return. Our movement is big. And a black dress is just the beginning of the darkness that will be drained from every industry across the country by the time we’re done. That’s a promise."