Rose McGowan Pays Tribute to Former Manager Jill Messick Days After Her Suicide
Rose McGowan paid tribute on social media to her former manager Jill Messick three days after the mother of two died by suicide.
“For Jill: May your family find some measure of solace during this pain,” McGowan, 44, wrote on Instagram on Saturday.
Messick, 50, was a manager for McGowan in 1997, when the actress says Harvey Weinstein raped her. Weinsten has denied all of McGowan’s claims of sexual misconduct.
McGowan also appeared to make reference to Weinstein in her Instagram post, writing “That one man could cause so much damage is astounding, but tragically true. The bad man did this to us both. May you find peace on the astral plane. May you find serenity with the stars.”
Messick took her own life on Wednesday.
In confirming Messick’s death, her family said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: “Jill was victimized by our new culture of unlimited information sharing and a willingness to accept statement as fact.
“The speed of disseminating information has carried mistruths about Jill as a person, which she was unable and unwilling to challenge,” her family continued. “She became collateral damage in an already horrific story."
In a recent appearance on The View, McGowan said she told her manager what happened with Weinstein “but she got a job with him for seven years right afterwards.”
When The View co-host Joy Behar asked what her manager told her to do, McGowan said: “I went to the management company, one of the bigger managers than her and I remember one of them said, ‘G** damn it! I told him to stop doing that. I just had an LA Times story killed about him. He owes it to me not to do this.”
Messick’s family said that she had defended McGowan.
“What makes Rose’s inaccurate accusations and insinuations against Jill ironic was that she was the first person who stood up on Rose’s behalf, and alerted her bosses to the horrific experience which Rose suffered,” the statement said.
“Twenty years ago, as a very junior person in a management company hierarchy, Jill exhibited her integrity in doing the right thing — she raised the red flag with the heads of her firm,” the family continued. “In the face of inappropriate behavior, Jill handled the situation appropriately.”
Messick, who served as executive producer for the films Masterminds and Baby Mama, had bipolar disorder and privately battled depression for years, her family said.
Her family said Messick chose not to speak out because she didn’t want to take attention away from victims of sexual harassment and assault.
“She opted not to add to the feeding frenzy, allowing her name and her reputation to be sullied despite having done nothing wrong,” the family said. “She never chose to be a public figure; that choice was taken away from her.”
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