Rose McGowan Responds After Director Alexander Payne Denies Statutory Rape Allegations

Rose McGowan is furious with Alexander Payne after the director denied her allegations of statutory rape. The actress has vowed to make it her mission to expose the filmmaker.

On Friday, Sept. 4, Payne published a guest column for Deadline in which he slammed McGowan's accusation that they had a sexual encounter when she was 15 years old. He denied having met the actress, now 47, at that age, saying that he had been studying at UCLA from the mid to late '80s and never crossed paths with her.

When Variety reached out to McGowan for comment, the "Planet Terror" star suggested that Payne had more alleged victims.

"F— him and his lies is my comment," McGowan said. "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."

The "Charmed" star went on to say that Payne's power as a director gives him influence over the public and criticized the films he created.

"I want people that have watched his films to know his morals are in your mind, his thoughts have become yours," McGowan said.

"Like in his ‘comedy’ ‘Election,’ where the middle-aged teacher that fantasizes having sex with his young student, Reese Witherspoon," she continued. "I want people to know Hollywood perpetrators show you who they are, their skewed view normalized. Men like Predator Payne, who profited from working Weinstein, must be stopped from not only assaulting, but must also be prevented from infecting the masses with their propaganda.”

In a post she shared on Twitter, McGowan accused Payne of playing the victim and lying to the public.

"You only have yourself to blame, it didn't have to be this way, you did this," she concluded.

In response, Payne said via his rep that he had "no further comment regarding Rose McGowan’s false allegations."

McGowan came forward with her allegations against Payne in August, though she previously hinted at it during a conversation with investigative journalist Ronan Farrow in early 2018.

"Alexander Payne. You sat me down & played a soft-core porn movie you directed for Showtime under a different name," she posted on Twitter. I still remember your apartment in Silverlake. You are very well-endowed. You left me on a street corner afterwards. I was 15."

In a follow-up tweet, the actress shared a photo of herself at 15 and said she only wanted an apology from him.

But in his column, Payne denied her claim that he showed her a "soft-core porn movie" that he directed for Showtime "under a different name," saying that he never worked for Showtime or directed a film under any name other than his own. The filmmaker also said that he and McGowan had "very cordial interactions."

Payne explained that they went on a couple of dates following their meeting in 1991 when she auditioned for a comic short for a Playboy Channel series. He said he didn't ask McGowan how old she was because the role required an actress who was of age.

He concluded, "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."