Artist Behind Meryl Streep Attacks Reveals Himself

’Tis the season for awards campaigns in Los Angeles—when billboards touting the year’s best films and performances sprout up on either side of Sunset Boulevard. So it did not seem strange that posters featuring Meryl Streep were suddenly erected in strategic corners of Los Angeles earlier this week, especially given that Streep’s new movie—Steven Spielberg’s political drama The Post—opens in limited release on Friday.

What was noteworthy, however, was that the posters were not advertisements—they were attacks on the Oscar winner, who has claimed that she did not know about the alleged serial abusive behavior of her collaborator Harvey Weinstein. The posters show Streep smiling next to Weinstein, her eyes covered with the words “she knew.”

The posters popped up after a heated public exchange between Rose McGowan, the Weinstein accuser-turned-crusader, and Streep. So it seemed likely that they were created by someone who believed that Streep, for all of her equality activism, was silently complicit in Weinstein’s pattern of behavior. But on Thursday, in a bizarre plot twist, a right-wing artist took responsibility for the posters—claiming that he created them, not for moral retribution, but for revenge against the actress’s attacks on President Donald Trump.

The right-wing artist, Sabo, unmasked himself to The Guardian, explaining that a collaborator suggested they create a campaign against The Post, because it was being “used as a platform” to criticize the current president. “We wanted to take a swipe back,” Sabo said, failing to explain why he did not attack any of Streep’s collaborators on the film as well.

The artist, a 49-year-old former Marine known to some as an alt-right Banksy, confessed that he did not know whether Streep actually knew about Weinstein’s alleged abuse. “I wasn’t sitting in a room with her. I can’t say 100 percent. But I’d say anyone in the [film] industry had a pretty good idea. I think she knew. Maybe she was providing Weinstein with the fresh meat.”

In the same interview, Sabo defended Trump’s remarks boasting about assaulting women, which were caught by Access Hollywood. “I don’t know a man who I’ve had a beer who doesn’t talk shit like that. We don’t have proof of Trump doing it. Who am I to judge him on that?”

Last weekend, McGowan accused Streep, in a since-deleted Tweet, of having “happily worked for The Pig Monster.” Continued McGowan, “YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy.”

In response, Streep released a rare statement, denying she knew of Weinstein’s actions.

“It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others,” Streep said in a statement to HuffPost. “I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn't know this was happening.”

McGowan Tweeted her attack of Streep following reports that actresses would wear black to the Golden Globes next month to protest sexual harassment.

If Sabo is, in fact, responsible for the posters, Hollywood’s sexual assault reckoning and Trump’s presidency may even be more confusingly interconnected than we initially thought.

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Julie MillerJulie Miller is a Senior Hollywood writer for Vanity Fair’s website.

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