Actress Rose McGowan continued her accusations against two-time Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne with a social media post accusing him of “grooming” her for sex when she was only a teenager.
McGowan claims she has a sexual relationship with the Downsizing director when she was fifteen. The 46-year-old actress wrote, “for years I had thought a man I had sexual relations with was a sexual experience I had… I now know I was groomed.”
The post was the second social media message in which McGowan details their relationship. In her earlier post, McGowan said Payne was a “well endowed” man who she says, “sat me down and played a soft-core porn movie” when she was a teen. However, McGowan did not identify Payne in the earlier post. The actress also posted the accusation to Twitter:
McGowan went on to lay the blame for her sexual relationship on Payne. “If you are out there trying to have sex with an underage minor, you are committing a crime, even if the minor doesn’t know it,” McGowan continued in her second post on the subject.
“I was attracted to him, so I thought it was on me, but that’s not correct. I was not an adult,” the Charmed actress added.
McGowan accused the Sideways director of dumping her on the street after having sex with her. The alleged incident so hurt her that she stopped acting until her 20s when she went back into the profession.
“I feel very badly for my 15-year-old self. 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 told Variety.
“He left me on the corner in front of Café Tropical in Silverlake to find my own way home,” McGowan added. “Grooming is real. I want you all to know that it’s not your fault if you were mentally massaged into thinking it’s okay. It is not. I know this now.”
She also hoped that her experience would help other young people who may be in similar situations. McGowan also said she is not interested in destroying Payne’s life. She only wants an apology.
McGowan was also a prominent accuser of former Hollywood powerhouse producer Harvey Weinstein, and subsequently became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. McGowan alleged that Weinstein raped her in his hotel suite during the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. Weinstein is now serving a 23-year sentence for sexual offenses in a New York prison.
Alexander Payne has not made a public statement about McGowan’s accusations.
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