After a report claimed that actress and Harvey Weinstein accuser Asia Argento paid off her own rape accuser Jimmy Bennett, Argento's friend Rose McGowan issued a public statement supporting Bennet's claims. The former Charmed star claimed that she viewed text messages from the person she was dating, Rain Dove, which confirmed McGowan's belief that Bennett was telling the truth about Argento having sex with him when he was 17 and a minor in the U.S. state of California. The statement also questioned other details of Argento's relationship with Bennett, which included Bennett sending her naked photographs.
Now, via Twitter, McGowan has released a second statement, apologizing to Argento for "misinterpreting" certain things in Dove's text messages with Argento.
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"On 27 August I released a statement about Asia Argento, which I now realized contained a number of facts that were not correct. The most serious of these was that I said that the unsolicited nude text messages Asia received from Jimmy Bennett had been sent since Jimmy was 12 years old. In fact, I had misunderstood the messages that Asia exchanged with my partner Rain Dove, which made clear that Jimmy had sent Asia inappropriate text messages only after they met up again when he was 17 (still legally a minor in California, but notably different from a 12 year old)," wrote McGowan on Twitter.
She added:
"In my statement, I challenged why Asia had not acted as I think any responsible adult would if they received sexually explicit messages from a 12 year old, which of course do not apply in the same way as when the situation involves a 17 year old, who had admitted harboring misguided fantasies about their mentor since they were 12... I deeply regret not correcting my mistake sooner and apologize to Asia for not doing so."
.@asiaargento pic.twitter.com/yn96UGUJ7a
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) September 27, 2018
Upon reading McGowan's message, which McGowan tagged her in, Argento responded.
"Although I am grateful to @rosemcgowan for her full apology following her groundless allegations about me, if she had issued it earlier, I may have kept my job on X-Factor and avoided the constant accusations of paedophilia which I have been subjected to in real-life and online," Argento wrote, referring to the fact that she was cut from the Italian version of X Factor following the sexual assault scandal.
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Although I am grateful to @rosemcgowan for her full apology following her groundless allegations about me, if she had issued it earlier, I may have kept my job on X-Factor and avoided the constant accusations of paedophilia which I have been subjected to in real-life and online. https://t.co/ZwH0poL0nR
— Asia Argento (@AsiaArgento) September 27, 2018
Argento continued with a pointed comment to McGowan.
"Now go on, live your life and stop hurting other people, will you Rose? Best wishes."
Now go on, live your life and stop hurting other people, will you Rose? Best wishes.
— Asia Argento (@AsiaArgento) September 27, 2018
Several weeks after McGowan's response to Argento's sexual assault accusation, Argento — a then-friend of McGowan's who received public support from her following the death of Argento's partner Anthony Bourdain — threatened to sue McGowan over her words.
"Dear @RoseMcGowan. It is with genuine regret that I am giving you 24 hours to retract and apologise for the horrendous lies made against me in your statement of August 27th. If you fail to address this libel I will have no option other than to take immediate legal action."
Dear @RoseMcGowan. It is with genuine regret that I am giving you 24 hours to retract and apologise for the horrendous lies made against me in your statement of August 27th. If you fail to address this libel I will have no option other than to take immediate legal action.
— Asia Argento (@AsiaArgento) September 17, 2018
It is unclear if any legal action against McGowan was taken for her previous comments.
Refinery29 has reached out to Argento and McGowan for comment.
If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call theRAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).