Rose McGowan — the actress whose rape allegation against Harvey Weinstein made her one of the Me Too movement’s most prominent figures and led to the disgraced former producer’s eventual imprisonment — has come forward with another allegation, accusing director Alexander Payne of statutory rape.
McGowan claims the Oscar-winning director played her a pornographic movie and slept with her when she was just 15. (Payne is 13 years older than McGowan and therefore would have been 28 at the time of the incident.)
“Alexander Payne,” she tweeted on Monday. “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.” She followed up the post with a photo of herself at age 15, writing, “I just want an acknowledgement and an apology. I do not want to destroy. This was me at 15.”
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. pic.twitter.com/mVqiN4S9NW
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 17, 2020
I just want an acknowledgement and an apology. I do not want to destroy. This was me at 15. pic.twitter.com/XeNpsrpY4s
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 17, 2020
McGowan described the incident — but did not publicly name Payne at the time — during an interview with investigative journalist Ronan Farrow at the 92nd Y back in February 2018, as the Daily Beast reported.
“You told me that, even long before the Harvey Weinstein incident, you recounted to me that there was a statutory rape by a prominent man in Hollywood,” Farrow said to her during the event.
“Yes, and I didn’t process that until — well, I’ll get to him,” McGowan responded. Though she didn’t name Payne at the time, she said a “very famous” director who had “won Oscars” took advantage of her when she was 15. (Payne has won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay twice, once for Sideways and once for The Descendants, and has been nominated for Best Director three times.)
“He took me home, after he met me, and showed me a soft-porn movie he’d made for Showtime, under a different name, of course… And then he had sex with me,” she said at the time. “And then he left me next to Tropical in Silver Lake, standing on a street corner.”
McGowan told Farrow that it took her years to realize that what allegedly transpired between her and Payne constituted statutory rape.
“I’d been attracted to him, so I always filed it away as a sexual experience… Two weeks after your [New Yorker] story came out, I’d processed it, but I removed myself from it,” she said.
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