Alexander Payne Denies Rose McGowan's Sexual Misconduct Claims

"What she has said about me in recent social media posts is simply untrue"

Alexander Payne photograph by Paul Katzenberger

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Sep 4, 2020

Lat month, Rose McGowan accused Alexander Payne of sexual misconduct, alleging the director engaged in sexually inappropriate behaviour with her when she was just 15 years old. Now Payne has responded to those allegations, offering up a firm denial that any sexual misconduct took place.

Payne penned a response to McGowan's claim via a guest column for Deadline, stating "what she has said about me in recent social media posts is simply untrue."

Down below, you can read Payne's entire column, as it originally appears on Deadline:

Rose McGowan and I have always had very cordial interactions, and I have admired her commitment to activism and her voice in an important, historic movement. However, what she has said about me in recent social media posts is simply untrue. 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.

Alexander Payne

September 4, 2020


UPDATE (9/4, 2:30 p.m. ET): McGowan has now already responded to Payne's denial, telling Variety, "Fuck him and his lies is my comment."

She continued, "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.

"I want people that have watched his films to know his morals are in your mind, his thoughts have become yours. Like in his 'comedy' Election, where the middle-aged teacher that fantasizes having sex with his young student, Reese Witherspoon. 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."  

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