Rose McGowan has been at the forefront of the #MeToo movement, coming forward with various stories of sexual misconduct and assault she suffered at the hands of some of the most powerful people in Hollywood. And though she’s been doing this for years already, she still has names of alleged abusers that she wants to share, including filmmaker Alexander Payne.
In a recent tweet, McGowan wrote, “Alexander Payne. You sat me down & played a soft-core porn movie you directed for Showtime under a different name. I still remember your apartment in Silverlake. You are very well-endowed. You left me on a street corner afterwards. I was 15.”
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She added, in another tweet, “I just want an acknowledgement and an apology. I do not want to destroy.”
Obviously, a tweet like that is enough to get people to notice. And while she didn’t explain much about the incident outside of that tweet, McGowan did talk to Variety about why she is coming forward now about Payne. The actress said that “it was time” to come forward and she went further into detail about the incident.
“I feel very badly for my 15 year-old self,” she explained. “I had auditioned for him. He took me home afterwards. I quit acting after that and then was discovered by Ilene Staple (a friend of Gregg Araki) 6 years later. It wasn’t until after the HW [Harvey Weinstein] stories came out that I reframed the Payne of it all. I had for years looked at it as a sexual encounter, not understanding what it really was. It was a grooming situation. The first time I’d been shown a straight porn.”
She continued, “He left me on the corner in front of Café Tropical in Silverlake to find my own way home. I feel extreme emotional exhaustion today.”
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Payne, obviously, is the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind features such as “Election,” “Sideways” and “The Descendants.” He has a few projects in development now, including a new HBO series with Olivia Colman and a remake of the feature, “Babette’s Feast.”
The filmmaker has yet to respond to the allegations.
