Rose McGowan Accuses Director Alexander Payne of Sexual Misconduct

Rose McGowan has accused filmmaker Alexander Payne of sexual misconduct, with the alleged incident supposedly taking place when she was 15 years old.

Early Monday morning, August 17th, the actress tweeted: “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.” The post was accompanied by a .gif of McGowan making an emphatic X gesture against a background featuring the word “No.”

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

In a follow-up tweet, McGowan posted a photo of herself at age 15. She said, “I just want an acknowledgment and an apology. I do not want to destroy.”

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

A representative for Payne did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

The details in McGowan’s allegation against Payne are similar to those she mentioned when discussing an unnamed man during a 2018 conversation with reporter Ronan Farrow. McGowan said the unnamed man had “worked for my rapist” — referring to Harvey Weinstein — and “won Oscars” (Payne has won two Oscars, both for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Sideways and The Descendants). She said the man had shown her a soft porn movie he’d made for Showtime under a pseudonym, had sex with her and then left her “on a street corner.”

“I didn’t process that until two weeks after the [New Yorker] story [on Weinstein] came out,” McGowan said at the time. “I always thought of it just as a sexual experience even though I had not … I was in bed and I was like … I think that’s molestation? Is it?”