She is famous for showing up in bone chilling thrillers, such as Scream, Charmed, and Grindhouse, but now Rose McGowan has people screaming for a different reason.
The 45-year-old actress and activist was recounting her years growing up in the cult Children of God (now called The Family International) to FUBAR Radio’s Callum McSwiggan. Among the most shocking alleged events while in the cult, as McGowan describes in her 2018 memoir Brave, involved an older member cutting a wart off of her thumb.
When McSwiggan asked her about the traumatizing nature of the experience, she replied, “It was but also… America was a lot more traumatizing to me, actually. I found America much, much more hardcore than the cult.”
McGowan on FUBAR Radio
McGowan, who was born and raised in Tuscany, Italy, until her family settled in Oregon when she was 10, went on to describe her “terrifying” experiences as a bullied teen in her early years in the United States. She also recounted her struggles in white male-dominated Hollywood in her 20s where she felt objectified and taken advantage of.
She described one instance in which even a female director, who didn’t name, left her feeling mistreated on set.
“I had a scene in a boxing club so there were like a hundred extras and men in the ring. It’s all men and then I walk in the room, so there’s all this testosterone. And I was wearing — I shouldn’t even have to qualify what I was wearing, which she approved — was a skirt to my knees, boots to my knees, tights, a big jacket and a turtle neck,” McGowan said, as reported by The Daily Mail. “She said in front of everybody, ‘Wow you look like a whore. Well we don’t have any time to change this. Okay. Action.'”
McGowan in Scream (1996)
McGowan has also been previously outspoken against Harvey Weinstein, who has produced several films starring McGowan including Scream, accusing him of raping her in 1997.
But even those stories did not earn her any sympathy from those who could not see past her comment about life in America, as evidenced in the following tweet:
What do you think? Is McGowan right to feel like a victim to female oppression in America, or should she feel ashamed of herself for comparing a country she has called home for years to a deranged cult?
Let us know in the comments below!