Meryl Streep targeted in Harvey Weinstein ‘she knew’ street art campaign

A street-art campaign in Los Angeles is attacking actress Meryl Streep, claiming she has covered up for reported sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.

Images of black-and-white posters depicting Streep at some undated, evidently industry-related event with a partially cropped Weinstein began appearing on many commenters’ social-media accounts Tuesday. Across Streep’s eyes is a red band with white text reading, “She knew,” done in the well-known style of artist and UCLA art professor Barbara Kruger, who did not respond to Newsday requests to ascertain if she were involved or if her work was being mimicked without her knowledge or consent.

KCBS-TV in Los Angeles said that according to social-media posts, the work appeared near the SAG-AFTRA building; at the Hollywood and Highland complex; across from the 20th Century Fox studio lot in Century City; and near Streep’s reported West Coast home in Pasadena. Each poster carries a QR Code in the lower right corner, which the Los Angeles Daily News says takes users to a Bitcoin address where they can contribute digital currency to the anonymous perpetrators.

Social-media reaction was mixed, with some commenters likewise accusing Streep, despite no known evidence, of lying that she was unaware of rumors about the producer, while others accepted her word and still others asked why the much-lauded, three-time Academy Award winner, 68, was being singled out.

Streep had responded Monday to actress Rose McGowan’s weekend tweet, since deleted, accusing her and other actresses of staying silent during Weinstein’s alleged decades of sexually abuse. “I wasn’t deliberately silent,” Streep told HuffingtonPost.com. “I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know,” adding that “not every actor, actress, and director who made films that HW distributed knew he abused women,” partly because “women’s silence was purchased by him and his enablers.”

Meanwhile, at a roundtable arranged by New York magazine and previewed Wednesday by NBC’s “Today,” McGowan, 44, spoke with a panel of women who have accused media and political figures, including Louis C.K. and President Donald Trump, of sexual harassment. “My beef is really with all the people that are complicit,” the actress stated, adding, “I would challenge the media to stop using the word ‘alleged’ ” in reference to the encounters they describe. She nonetheless believes a cultural shift is occurring. “It’s the first time in history women are being believed,” she asserted, “even though we get slagged.”