Rose McGowan has opened up on the backlash she received for her iconic VMAs dress.
“They slut shamed me like crazy,” revealed the “Charmed” star in a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment.
“I hadn’t really ever dealt with global media shaming,” she continued.
The actress explained that the 1997 event was her “first big public appearance” after she was allegedly raped by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
“I just felt like, ‘Oh Hollywood, would you want a body just that you can use and throw away? Then I’ve got one for you!'” she shared. “It was like at the end of ‘Gladiator’ when he comes out and he’s like, ‘Are you not entertained?’
McGowan attended the ceremony with then-boyfriend Marilyn Manson.
“And if you look at me, I did it with power,” she went on. “I didn’t do it with my hand on my hip to be sexy. Most of the women that are dressed like that on the red carpet, it’s a calculated, sexy move to turn people on. Mine was like, ‘I’m gonna f**k with your brain. I’m going to blow your brain up.’ And nobody had done it.”
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Despite the backlash, the Brave author says that she doesn’t regret her outfit choice.
“You know, when you do stuff sometimes on instinct and in a mood, like when a mood overtakes you on, you analyze what it was that brought you to that mood or that choice,” she added. “So, I’ve certainly had a lot of time to analyze and I’m looking at the timeline. But I completely understand why I did what I did.”
