Asia Argento Threatens Rose McGowan With Lawsuit Over ‘Horrendous Lies’
UPDATE: Rose McGowan apologized to Asia Argento over a statement she shared in August that she now admits “contained a number of facts that were not correct” regarding the sexual assault accusations against Argento.
In a note on Twitter, McGowan said the most serious discrepancy was the claim that Argento allegedly received nude text messages from her accuser, Jimmy Bennett, when he was 12. McGowan acknowledged that Bennett “had sent Asia inappropriate text messages only after they met up again when he was 17.” She continued, “I do not feel it is my place to comment further on what happened at the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Ray hotel in May 2013, save to say that I now appreciate that it was not as I thought it was previously.”
Argento responded to McGowan on Twitter, writing, “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.”
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Asia Argento threatened legal action against Rose McGowan, her former friend and fellow pillar of the #MeToo movement, if McGowan doesn’t retract a statement she made in August concerning the sexual assault accusations against Argento.
“Dear @RoseMcGowan. It is with genuine regret that I am giving you 24 hours to retract and apologize for the horrendous lies made against me in your statement of August 27th,” Argento tweeted Monday morning. “If you fail to address this libel I will have no option other than to take immediate legal action.”
On August 27th, McGowan severed her friendship with Argento, acknowledging that a shared friend named Rain Dove told McGowan that Argento admitted to having sex with Jimmy Bennett, the former child actor at the center of Argento’s sexual assault scandal; Argento reportedly paid Bennett $380,000 to keep quiet about the 2013 incident, a payment that occurred in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein downfall.
“Asia, you were my friend,” McGowan wrote on August 27th. “I loved you. You’ve spent and risked a lot to stand with the #MeToo movement. I really hope you find your way through this process to rehabilitation and betterment. Anyone can be better – I hope you can be, too. Do the right thing. Be honest. Be fair. Let justice stay its course. Be the person you wish Harvey could have been.”
McGowan later added that she felt “betrayed” by Argento over the Bennett accusations.
On September 5th, Argento’s lawyers stated that it was the actress, and not Bennett, who was the victim in their sexual encounter, and that she would cease her payments to Bennett; Argento’s late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain reportedly orchestrated the “financial payout.”
Two days later, Argento tweeted, “It is a shame that @rosemcgowan is not prepared to accept when she is wrong. @raindovemodel accepted she was wrong, but her tweet has been deleted. Rose’s statement continues to make false claims.”
Bennett’s legal team called Argento’s counterclaims “ludicrous” and “self-serving and slanderous.”