Rose McGowan claims Gavin Newsom’s wife bribed her to keep quiet about Harvey Weinstein

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Rose McGowan says California Governor Gavin Newsom’s wife ‘tried to bribe her’ by acting as a go-between for Harvey Weinstein‘s lawyer and offering her money so that she would not come forward with sexual assault allegations in 2017.

Appearing alongside Republican candidate Larry Elder in Los Angeles on Sunday, McGowan accused California First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom of ‘trying to bribe her’ in order to suppress her rape allegations against Weinstein.

‘What can Boies Schiller do to make you happy?’ McGowan said she was asked by Siebel Newsom during a 2017 phone call, which she says she abruptly ended by hanging up. Her comments were first reported by The Washington Post.

McGowan also alleged that Siebel Newsom sent her an email in which she ‘inferred that she was a Weinstein rape victim to get into this private group of Weinstein rape victims.’ 

In 2017, the former Charmed actor said someone close to Weinstein offered her $1million if she agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement. McGowan says she refused the offer. It is unclear if Newsom’s wife was the one who made the offer.

She then went public with allegations that in 1997, Weinstein assaulted her during the Sundance Film Festival when she was just 23 years old.

Recently, McGowan told Dave Rubin on his show The Rubin Report that Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, called her in 2017 to try and broker a deal between her and Weinstein attorney David Boies to make the story go away. 

Boies is the powerhouse Democratic Party attorney who co-founded the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP alongside Jonathan D. Schiller and Donald Flexner. 

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the sister of Melissa Siebel Schiller, who is married to Joshua Irwin Schiller, the son of Jonathan D. Schiller. Joshua Schiller is also a practicing lawyer with his father’s firm.

‘This is about six months before the New York Times article on Weinstein that I set up broke,’ McGowan told Rubin.

She added: ‘And she called me on behalf of a Theranos board member… long-time lawyer of Hillary and Bill Clinton and Weinstein, one David Boies. So this woman… some blonde lady with the last name of Newsom, cold calls me and is like, “David Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy.”

‘I don’t know if it would be fiscal numeration. I don’t know. Absolutely nothing would make me happy.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to Newsom’s office and to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP seeking comment.

McGowan has endorsed Elder, the Republican  talk show host, who is seeking to unseat Newsom in Tuesday’s recall election. Recent polls show Newsom, a Democrat, comfortably ahead in deep-blue California. 

She has been outspoken in her criticism of Democrats since the Weinstein affair broke open. Weinstein was a prominent fundraiser for Democratic politicians. 

‘I finally came to a point where I am not a Democrat, because everyone who has harassed, stalked, and stolen from me in my time in Hollywood has been a Democrat,’ McGowan said on Sunday.

McGowan said that she is supporting Elder even though she doesn’t agree with him on every issue.

‘I used to listen to Larry Elder after I’d drive home from the set,’ McGowan said. 

‘Sometimes I’d even pull over and use a fake name, usually Tracy, to call in. And from him, I learned about the corruption of the teachers union in this state.’ 

McGowan added: ‘Do I agree with him on every issue? No. So what?’ 

‘He is the better candidate. He is the better man.’ 

McGowan on Thursday posted a video on her Twitter feed blasting Newsom and his wife as ‘frauds.’

‘I have the receipts. I wish I didn’t. I wish you were all real. I wish you really did help, but you don’t and you’re on the side of wrong,’ McGowan said. 

‘I hope this recall goes through because California does not need you,’ McGowan says in the clip. ‘The nation does not need you.

‘The world does not need you. We do not need you.’ 

It was reported on Saturday that the governor and #MeToo champion Newsom accepted an expensive bottle of wine from Boies, the lawyer hired to represent Weinstein and dig up dirt on the women who accused him of sexual assault.

Boies, a Democratic superlawyer, gave Newsom the $300 bottle of wine weeks after Boies led a smear campaign against Weinstein’s accusers, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Boies helps run prestigious law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which has also hit the headlines this weekend over a raft of staff departures linked to its work with Weinstein, Theranos founder Elizabeth Smart, and claims of nepotism linked to co-founder Jonathan Schiller’s two sons. 

The firm has denied claims of impropriety. 

While others cut ties with Boies because of his work with the disgraced Hollywood producer, Newsom accepted the pricey gift on December 8, 2017, more than a month after reports revealed the lawyer worked to discredit Weinstein’s alleged victims.

The gift is set to reignite accusations that Newsom’s wife helped Boies try to squash negative stories about Weinstein.

Despite McGowan’s allegations, Jennifer herself accused Weinstein of behaving inappropriately with her at a film festival years before the allegations against the 69-year-old came to light.

‘I was naïve, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances,’ she penned in a column for the Huffington Post, which also slammed ‘the entire engine of Harvey Weinstein’s business and legal machines’ for working to silence victims.

Two months later Newsom accepted the bottle of wine. 

In April, prosecutors in Marin County, California dropped a domestic violence misdemeanor charge against Joshua Schiller.

On the night of January 14, Joshua Schiller, 40, was arrested for an alleged incident involving him and his wife, Melissa Siebel Schiller.

Siebel Schiller’s injuries were described as minor and not requiring medical attention, according to KTVU-TV.

Joshua Schiller took a months-long leave of absence from the law firm after the arrest.

His attorney said at the time that the incident was a misunderstanding.

‘We are clearly pleased, though not surprised, by the decision to drop the charge in light of the facts and circumstances,’ Joshua Schiller’s attorney, Douglas Horngrad, told Law.com. 

McGowan referenced the domestic violence allegations against Schiller as one of the reasons she endorsed Elder.

She accused the Democrats of being akin to a ‘cult.’ 

‘Cult leaders, which is what these people are – they massage your mind. They keep you in fear, they keep you in doubt.’

Pointing to Elder, she said: ‘I believe in this man, because I know his mind.’ 

Jennifer also championed the #MeToo movement along with her husband, who has claimed to be a dedicated ally. 

Newsom called it ‘a cultural movement, not a political movement’ while campaigning in Sacramento in 2018, though he was at the center of his own sex scandal as mayor of San Francisco. 

He admitted to having an affair in February 2007 when he separated from his first wife Kimberly Guilfoyle with his subordinate Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who was also the wife of his chief campaign advisor. 

Rippey-Tourk worked as Newsom’s appointment secretary. Her husband, Alex Tourk, resigned from Newsom’s campaign after he found out about their relationship. 

Guilfoyle went on to become a Fox News host, and is now in a relationship with Donald Trump Jr.  

Newsom said of the affair in Sacramento: ‘I acknowledged it. I apologized for it. I learned an enormous amount from it. We were very open and honest about it… And I am, every day, trying to be a champion and a model.’

A decade after the affair the now-governor is up for recall after the petition to remove him from office following ‘laws he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens…the highest taxes in the nation, the highest homelessness rates and the lowest quality of life as a result,’ according to the petitioners’ grievances.

‘He has imposed sanctuary state status and fails to enforce immigration laws. He unilaterally over-ruled the will of the people regarding the death penalty. He seeks to impose additional burdens on our state by the following; removing the protections of Proposition 13, rationing our water use, increasing taxes and restricting parental rights,’ it added. 

People behind the recall effort have slated Newsom over the Golden State’s draconian COVID restrictions, which went on longer than any other US state.

He outraged voters after dining inside at the ultra-exclusive French Laundry restaurant in November 2020, while urging Californians to stay out of restaurants.

And Newsom faced further accusations of being an out-of-touch hypocrite after admitting his kids had returned to in-person lessons at their private school in October 2020, while many Californian public school districts refused to do so.

Newsom has raised $70million for his campaign, and is widely expected to survive the September 14 recall effort.

Elder, who has pledged to take a far more libertarian attitude to governing should he win, is the candidate seen as the most likely to unseat Newsom should the polls prove wrong.