Hollywood is in bad shape right now.
Rampant misogyny and sex abuse have pervaded an industry that touts itself as the champions for women’s rights.
And it just got a whole lot worse now that a Hollywood executive has been found dead.
Hollywood can’t hide from the flurry of scandals.
The biggest stars to go down due to alleged sexual misconduct are Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, Woody Allen, and of course Harvey Weinstein.
None of them will be able to find work for a long time.
One of Weinstein’s most outspoken victims is actress Rose McGowan, who starred in a slew of 90’s films like Scream, Phantoms and Jawbreaker.
And now her former talent agent just turned up dead.
Breitbart reports:
“Hollywood producer and one-time talent representative for actress Rose McGowan, Jill Messick, was found dead from an apparent suicide Wednesday. She was 50.
In a statement, Messick’s family said the former film executive was driven to despair by the continuing controversy over the sexual assault scandal surrounding Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Messick’s family said she had been “victimized” with renewed allegations by actress Rose McGowan that she had been sexually assaulted by Weinstein during the time Messick represented her as an agent and manager.
“Seeing her name in headlines again and again, as part of one person’s attempt to gain more attention for her personal cause, along with Harvey’s desperate attempt to vindicate himself, was devastating for her,” the family said in the Thursday statement.
The statement added that Messick had become “collateral damage in an already horrific story” of abuse.
Messick was McGowan’s manager early in 1997 when the actress said she was raped by Weinstein in a hotel at the Sundance Film Festival.
Messick later became a production executive at Miramax, Weinstein’s film company, from 1997 to 2003.
Late last year, McGowan launched a campaign against Weinstein and other members of the Hollywood elite over decades of cases of sexual abuse.
The 50-year-old Messick became part of the controversy when her name repeatedly came up during the debate over the scandal.
“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,” the family said.
The family’s extensive statement goes on to refute all the allegations made against the deceased executive and warned that the media can do so much to destroy lives.
“She became collateral damage in an already horrific story… Jill was many things, but she was not a liar,” they said.
“We cannot forget that the media is a fearsome tool which cannot be used indiscriminately or even inadvertently to create further victims,” the family added.
Jill Messick is survived by her two children and their father, her own father, a brother, and her current partner, Dan Shuck.”
Her death hasn’t been proven as suicide yet, but it’s clear her guilt weighed her down immensely.
This could change how the industry chooses to treat and protect their clients, because it looks like many of them failed miserably.