Activist and artist Rose McGowan has accused filmmaker Alexander Payne of sexual misconduct that occurred when she was 15 years old and he was in his 20s. McGowan, now 46, tweeted the allegations against Payne, 59, on Monday morning before demanding an apology from the Academy Award-winning writer and director.
“You sat me down & played a soft-core porn movie you directed for Showtime under a different name,” McGowan tweeted. “I still remember your apartment in Silverlake. You are very well-endowed. You left me on a street corner afterwards. I was 15.” See the tweet below.
Representatives for Payne and McGowan did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment.
In a followup tweet, McGowan wrote, “I just want an acknowledgement and an apology. I do not want to destroy.”
McGowan’s claims line up with allegations hinted at during a 2018 conversation with another #MeToo whistleblower, journalist Ronan Farrow, as reported by The Cut while McGowan promoted her autobiographical book “Brave.”
“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.
“Yes, and I didn’t process that until — well, I’ll get to him,” McGowan said.
Farrow asked McGowan if she was willing to tell that story during their conversation, to which she replied, “Right now? In general, sure. Right now at this moment? I’ve had a big day. It would make this night very spectacular, I assure you. But let me tell you: He worked for my rapist and won Oscars.” She did say, however, that “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. And then he left me next to Tropical in Silver Lake, standing on a street corner.”
McGowan also said during the interview with Farrow that she hadn’t fully processed that what had happened could’ve been perceived as statutory rape until much later. “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.
McGowan was one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse, and instrumental in taking down the movie mogul’s empire and igniting a wave of similar allegations that have rocked Hollywood since the fall of 2017.
Payne’s next project, still in pre-production, is the four-part HBO miniseries “The Landscapers” starring Olivia Colman. Asked for comment, an HBO representative said, “We have nothing to add here.”
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