Should We Believe Rose McGowan's Allegations Against Alexander Payne?

The strange behavior Rose McGowan has exerted ever since the #MeToo movement kickstarted back in the fall of 2017, and, really, way before that, cannot be discounted when taking an honest to God’s look at the allegations she is darting towards director Alexander Payne (“Election,” “Sideways” “About Schmidt”).

By all accounts, McGowan is trying to destroy this man’s career.

It all started two and a half weeks ago when McGowan tweeted about a sexual misconduct allegation that happened between herself and Payne, who was in his late 20s. McGowan was 15 between September ‘88 and September ‘89, so by her account, the incident happened around 31 or 32 years ago. McGowan swears that the alleged misconduct by Payne was “statutory rape,” claiming he had shown her a softcore Showtime film he’d directed and then had sex with her.

This morning Payne defended himself, posting an op-ed that outright says McGowan is lying and that they actually dated in 1991, which meant she was 18 when they had sex.

“Rose is mistaken in saying we met when she was fifteen, in the late 1980s. I was a full-time film student at UCLA from 1984 until 1990, and I know that our paths never crossed.

“She claims that I showed her a ‘soft-core porn movie’ I had directed for Showtime ‘under a different name.’ This would have been impossible since I had never directed anything professionally, lurid, or otherwise. I have also never worked for Showtime or directed under any name other than my own.

“Rose and I did meet years later, in 1991, during my first directing job, when she auditioned for a comic short I was making for a Playboy Channel series. Although she did not get the part, she left a note for me at the casting desk asking that I call her. I had no reason to question how old she was, since the role she read for required an actor who was of age. We later went out on a couple of dates and remained on friendly terms for years.

“While I cannot allow false statements about events twenty-nine years ago to go uncorrected, I will continue to wish only the best for Rose.”

Hollywood-Elsewhere Columnist Jeffrey Wells did some digging on the aforementioned “soft-core porn” movie in question, which, it turns out, was a Playboy Channel series anthology of sex films. Payne directed two shorts, 1991’s “The Passion of Martin” and 1992’s “Inside Out III”. He landed the gigs when he was 27 or 28. McGowan was 18 when ‘Martin’ aired and 19 when ‘Inside Out’ was released.

Wells goes on to ask, “Did McGowan see Inside Out or did she see Payne’s The Passion of Martin? If it’s the latter, she couldn’t have seen much in the fall of ‘88 as Payne was only just beginning to work on it. Let’s presume that he showed her a rough cut of some kind, perhaps during the spring or summer of ‘89. Maybe.”

Back to McGowan, there have been a few incidents these last few years that have brought into question her mental health — remember her Barnes & Noble meltdown two years ago?

I cannot stress enough how important McGowan was, and still is, to the #MeToo movement, she and Asia Argento we're the first to admit their abuses at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, right before the movement was about to be unleashed on the mainstream. However, for all the honesty and the harrowing experiences McGowan have had, there is much more than meets the eye here. I contacted a friend who, wanting to remain anonymous, more or less, confirmed my concerns. He's known McGowan for the better part of 25 years, he wrote:

"Lotta drugs. Lotta plastic surgery. Talks weird in this way that only multi-pharmaceutical-taking people do. She didn't used to talk like that. You gotta understand, ROSE IS TRUMP This is all about her All her dumb language about I come from Planet Xenon and I don't speak like you people, that is all real megalomania (probably spiked with meth and Adderall) Sadly Rose was once a funny, vivid girl. Really could make you laugh out loud hard."

Then there’s the tragic case of Jill Messick, a Harvey Weinstein staffer who was the target of McGowan’s wrath, she committed suicide soon after the McGowan social media jabs. Messick’s family claimed that the late producer was “victimized” and brought to the brink of despair by McGowan.

Messick wasn’t just a producer, but, more importantly, a former Miramax exec who was also McGowan’s manager when the actress alleged Weinstein raped her back in January 1997. Messick's family claims that, despite her innocence, she was brought into a deep depression by McGowan and didn't want to defend herself as it would have deterred the goodness and crushed the momentum of the #MeToo movement. 

Despite the tragedy, McGowan has pursued her erratic behavior by targeting and bullying her way to the kind of fame she desperately seeks to hold on to, with the despair of irrelevance continuing to slowly, but surely creek at her door. The allegations against Payne should be taken very seriously, but an open mind and willingness to tackle factual evidence should be at the forefront of this conversation.

UPDATE: Rose McGowan has responded to Alexander Payne’s denial of her accusation of sexual misconduct. In a statement to Variety, McGowan said: “Fuck him and his lies, is my comment. I told Payne to acknowledge and apologize, he has not. I said I didn’t want to destroy, now I do. Why do these men always lie? I will now make it a mission to expose him. I am not the only one.”