Rose McGowan broke out in the late '90s with hits like Scream and Charmed, but has more
recently become known as one of the "Silence Breakers" who helped slay a Hollywood monster:
Harvey Weinstein.
What else do we know about this actress?
This is the untold truth of Rose McGowan.
Rose McGowan's parents were members of The Children of God cult, in which actors River
and Joaquin Phoenix were also raised.
The cult has since become infamous for allegations of child sexual abuse, according to BBC News.
Speaking with Elle in 2018, McGowan called the religious sect "patriarchal" and rife
with disturbing misogyny, saying
"I would look at [the women] at a very young age, and look at [my father] and look at them,
and I would just think, What?
You're worshiping that?
It didn't make any sense.
I vowed never to worship a man."
When she was 10, McGowan's family left the cult.
She told People,
"As strong as I like to think I've always been, I'm sure I could have been broken.
I know I got out by the skin of my teeth."
From there, McGowan landed her first job, working at a funeral home at 14 years old.
She told Elle magazine:
"That's where I learned set decor and lighting.
I'd try to get a vibe off a dead body...But looking back, I could've lived without seeing
certain things.
I've had a lot of trauma."
At the age of 18, Rose McGowan began dating Chrysalis Music Group A&R exec and rave club
owner Brett Cantor, but tragedy struck two years later.
In 1993, Cantor, 25, was found inside his Hollywood home, dead from multiple stab wounds.
When Variety reported on his death, law enforcement officials could not establish a motive.
The case remains unsolved.
Cantor's death received national attention a year later, when O.J.
Simpson's lawyers asked Judge Ito to review Cantor's case due to the nature of his murder.
According to New York Magazine, the move was perceived as a desperate attempt to find an
alibi and establish a serial killer but an LAPD spokesperson called this a dead end.
In her 2018 memoir, Brave, McGowan revealed that Cantor, who signed and discovered Rage
Against the Machine, had been, quote, "stabbed twenty-three times and almost decapitated".
Of the unsolved nature of his murder, McGowan said in her book:
"I have been trying for years to remedy that."
Rose McGowan was flying high at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, where her film Fifty Dead Men
Walking premiered.
A crime thriller based on Britain's former undercover agent Martin McGartland's infiltration
of the Irish Republican Army, it was expected to ruffle some feathers.
However, people didn't expect McGowan to do the ruffling.
At a news conference before the screening, McGowan said:
"My heart just broke for the cause...I imagine, had I grown up in Belfast, I would 100 percent
have been in the IRA.
Violence is not to be played out daily and provide an answer to problems, but I understand
it."
Members of the UK's Unionist Party called her comments "foolish and offensive," and
the filmmakers were forced to speak out.
Producer Guy Collins stated,
"We were surprised and disappointed by the comments made by Ms McGowan.
To the best of our knowledge her now stated views were never expressed at any time before,
during or after the shooting of the film, until the press conference ahead of the gala
screening last week."
Rose McGowan and shock-rocker Marilyn Manson were one of the most unlikely couples in celebrity
history and broke up in 2001 after a two-year engagement.
At the time, McGowan said in a statement:
"There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater."
In her book, Brave, the actress writes that although she was, quote, "really in love with
Manson, [she] grew exhausted of the lifestyle."
McGowan also called her ex with the scary persona a "very misunderstood person."
In reality, the two were more prone to boring nights in than wild nights out.
McGowan wrote in Brave:
"[Manson would be] painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware
from Martha Stewart's online store."
Although they are no longer together, McGowan doesn't regret their love affair one bit.
She wrote:
"It was a blast, and we were madly in love, and anybody else who thinks differently is
wrong.
It was a pretty legendary relationship, not just in the media.
It was a pretty legendary relationship behind the scenes, too.
We had a whole lot of amazing."
When director Robert Rodriguez cast Rose McGowan in his cult hit Planet Terror, of the double
feature Grindhouse, in 2006, the pair quickly became an item.
The problem?
Rodriguez was married to his wife of 16 years, producer Elizabeth Avellan, at the time.
The former couple divorced a year later, and Rodriquez proposed to McGowan, but they eventually
split in 2009.
In Brave, McGowan admitted her deep regret over the affair and acknowledged the "pain
and heartache" they'd caused Rodriguez's family.
McGowan wrote that she had confided in the filmmaker about Harvey Weinstein during their
relationship, but accused Rodriguez of committing a relationship-ending sin, by, quote,
"[selling] our film to my monster", Weinstein's Miramax.
She says in her book:
"I can't tell you what it's like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted
me and scarred me for life."
While he denied this particular accusation, Rodriguez previously stated to Variety that
he'd cast McGowan to spite Weinstein, but admitted that making the film blew up in his
face:
He told the publication:
"It cost me...my family, a large dose of sanity, and for years I have grappled with the sobering
idea that maybe I made a grave error in standing up at all [to Weinstein]...The reason I'm
saying this is because it's very clear to me now that when someone does what Harvey
Weinstein did, the devastation goes far beyond predator and victim."
The #MeToo movement emerged in 2017 after both The New York Times and The New Yorker
published bombshell exposés that shined a spotlight on the many allegations of rape
and sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein.
These articles earned Pulitzer prizes for their writers, including Ronan Farrow, and
started a national reckoning of abusive powerful men.
Meanwhile, Rose McGowan was struggling.
In 2019, McGowan told The Guardian:
"I've been called one of the first to speak out [on the record about Weinstein].
No.
I was the first.
I called the New York Times.
I blew it wide open, not them.
They won the Pulitzer and I'm the one hard-up for money.
It's disgusting.
I was kind of grossed out by how much they enjoyed being lauded."
McGowan went on to say that her "career was stolen," but also showed solidarity with all
the other women who were allegedly blacklisted for refusing Weinstein.
Referring to Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra, and Mira Sorvino, she told The Guardian,
"We all got stolen...and we were all very good at our jobs.
That's the other crime in all this."
During the 2020 Academy Awards, Natalie Portman wore a black cape with the names of several
female directors she believed were robbed of a best director nomination.
In a lengthy Facebook post, McGowan referred to Portman's type of activism as "deeply offensive,"
because Portman herself had only worked with two female directors in her career and runs
a production company that has yet to hire a woman director besides, well, Portman.
On Facebook, McGowan wrote:
"The kind of protest that gets rave reviews from the mainstream media for its bravery.
Brave?
No, not by a long shot.
More like an actress acting the part of someone who cares.
As so many of them do."
McGowan went on to claim Portman was just paying "lip service" to the problem without
any action, writing in the post:
"Fake support of other women is the problem."
This caught Portman's attention, who released a statement to People.
"It is inaccurate to call me 'brave' for wearing a garment with women's names on it.
'Brave' is a term I more strongly associate with actions like those of the women who have
been testifying against Harvey Weinstein the last few weeks, under incredible pressure."
According to Pink News, in a since-deleted tweet in early January 2020, McGowan wrote:
"I'm a registered Republican in California.
I loathe the Clintons.
I hate Trump.
I will not vote Republican, but I cannot vote Democrat.
I'd rather know what evil I'm getting, so I'll go Republican.
This is about WWIII, so none of that s--- matters anyway."
As one might expect, the actress got immediate push back, which perhaps led to her next now-deleted
tweet, in which she wrote:
"I will never vote Republican.
I want the Democrats to win because we are less likely to die."
She also called herself a "conscientious objector" of the United States', quote, "policies, lies,
corruption, nationalism, racism, and deep misogyny."
A month later, McGowan appeared on Evan Ross Katz's podcast, Shut Up Evan, and revealed
that she only pretended to switch political parties to win a $200 bet after her brother
dared her to be a Republican for three months.
McGowan admitted on the podcast,
"Granted, late-night ideas aren't always the best."
We're used to seeing Rose McGowan's talents onscreen, but now she's ready to take those
talents behind the camera.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at the 2019 Odessa Film Festival, McGowan discussed
two feature films she plans to direct.
This first was the animated Pomerania, a story about a dog who becomes a queen and goes to
war with the citizens of Muttlandia.
After that would come the psychological horror film Sleepwalk.
McGowan explained to the Hollywood Reporter:
"It's a very haunting story about a young girl who sleepwalks a lot, and she blurs what
is reality and what is false."
McGowan hinted that she chose this new career path out of necessity, claiming that she wasn't
being offered any roles after speaking out against Harvey Weinstein.
McGowan explained to the Hollywood Reporter:
"People in Hollywood have not been brave enough to step up for me as I stepped up for them.
Because I helped to clean out the system and they haven't been brave in return.
So, I do miss performing but I feel like acting is in the past, mostly because of the lack
of support that I've gotten."
On February 24th, 2020, as reported by ABC News:
"[Harvey Weinstein] was found guilty of criminal sexual assault and of rape in the third degree
but was acquitted of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and of rape in
the first degree."
Rose McGowan was among the many celebs who reacted to the news, when she sat down with
Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker to describe her thoughts on the justice she'd waited over
20 years to see.
She shared:
"Well, it's another day in the twilight zone...I haven't exhaled in so long."
When asked how she felt when she learned of Weinstein's conviction, McGowan told Farrow:
"Honestly, joy.
And then I thought, I wonder if he's gonna hire a hitman to kill me?
That was my other thought.
And then I thought, Should I have coffee this morning?"
McGowan appeared on the Shut Up Evan podcast that same day, where she said she wouldn't
feel closure until Weinstein had died.
McGowan said:
"I feel like he and I are strapped in this battle together until one of us is dead.
That's how it goes...It's a really disgusting feeling.
I just would love to be able to be like other people and live my life.
That would be really nice, you know?"
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, you can call the National
Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit RAINN.org for additional resources.
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