Rose McGowan has apologised to Asia Argento about incorrect details she included in a statement she released about the sexual assault allegations levelled at Argento by Jimmy Bennett, as Vanity Fair writes.
In her statement posted to Twitter, McGowan writes that a number of facts in the statement 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.”
McGowan had actually misread the texts exchanged between her partner Rain Dove and Argento: “Jimmy had sent Asia inappropriate text messages only after they met up again when he was 17.”
She explains that there’s obviously a difference between these messages coming from a 12- or 17-year-old, closing with: “I deeply regret not correcting my mistake sooner and apologise to Asia for not doing so.”
https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1045369867174662145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1045369867174662145&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Fhollywood%2F2018%2F09%2Frose-mcgowan-asia-argento-apology
Argento didn’t accept the apology gracefully, tweeting:
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://twitter.com/AsiaArgento/status/1045378336015421441
She tweeted another barb to McGowan not long after: “Now go on, live your life and stop hurting other people, will you Rose? Best wishes.”
https://twitter.com/AsiaArgento/status/1045378762144141315
Earlier this month Argento demanded that McGowan “retract and apologise” for her statement, and threatened “immediate legal action“.
https://twitter.com/AsiaArgento/status/1041643194012852224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1041643194012852224&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Fhollywood%2F2018%2F09%2Fasia-argento-rose-mcgowan-twitter-statement
The pair of women were vocal advocates of the #MeToo movement, helping each other through the first flow of Weinstein accusations. They even got matching dot tattoos – although McGowan has since removed the pic of them from Instagram. McGowan is known to have supported Argento through the death of her partner, Anthony Bourdain.
It is alleged that Argento slept with Bennett in a California hotel room in 2013, when he was only 17, and she was 37. Argento, possibly through Bourdain, is believed to have paid Bennett approx $517K after the accusations emerged, although she claims the money was to help the actor with his “severe economic problems“. She strongly denies the allegations of a sexual relationship with Bennett.
I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 21, 2018
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