I really didn’t think I would have a reason to be writing about Charmed today, but you never know what life will throw your way, especially in 2020. In the last few days, there’s been a lot of drama brewing on Actress Twitter, and we desperately need to break it down.
It all started on Thursday night, just after the Democratic National Convention concluded with Joe Biden’s acceptance of the party’s Presidential nomination. Rose McGowan, never shy about expressing her opinions, hopped on Twitter to share her view that Democrats haven’t accomplished anything. In the tweet, she called out a lack of progress on poverty, racism, and helping children, blaming the Democrats for Donald Trump’s popularity.
What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING? Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING. Why did people vote Trump? Because of you motherfuckers.
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 21, 2020
Unsurprisingly, this was a controversial statement, and a few people criticized McGowan for her harsh assessment of the Democratic Party. Before we get to the Alyssa Milano of it all, we also need to discuss Patricia Arquette’s involvement. In a reply to McGowan’s tweet, Arquette pointed out several Democratic achievements, including LGBT marriage and the Violence Against Women Act. McGowan then responded several times to Arquette, first telling her to “f*ck off,” and then criticizing Arquette’s displays of activism at awards shows.
Go wear another black dress to an awards show, go make another vacuous speech into an echo chamber of fellow wealthy liberals in Hollywood. My family fought for the Democrats for years, still do. Do not lecture me. https://t.co/FJmDHWVpDC
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 22, 2020
The Patricia Arquette tweets were like an appetizer, but the Alyssa Milano drama is the main course. Milano worked with Rose McGowan on Charmed for years, but clearly there’s no love lost between the two. In a separate thread (with a shady screenshot of McGowan’s tweet), Alyssa Milano listed many things Democrats have accomplished, beginning with (white) women’s suffrage. Over the course of two dozen tweets, her thread listed many Democrat-led policies from the past century, including the New Deal, the Voting Rights Act, and the Affordable Care Act. Finally, she addressed Rose McGowan, and others sharing similar views, directly:
Rose and anyone bleating the same “dEmOcRaTs DoNt HeLp PeOpLe” nonsense, your lies are going to hurt people less privileged than you. It’s the kind of thing an ACTUAL fraud would do. Thousands of people are dying a day but you go on with your hyperbolic attention seeking tweets.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) August 21, 2020
Rose McGowan responded to Alyssa’s first tweet, correctly pointing out that women’s suffrage only secured the vote for white women, and including a Marilyn Manson quote: “I was not born with enough middle fingers.” But that last tweet from Alyssa was the one that really set Rose off. I guess Rose McGowan doesn’t take kindly to being called a fraud.
She fired back with her own tweet thread, first claiming that Milano “stole #metoo” from its original founder, Tarana Burke. Burke, an activist, originally began the #MeToo movement back in 2006, but it gained worldwide traction more than a decade later in 2017, when Alyssa Milano posted her own message encouraging other women to come forward with the experiences. Milano and Burke have since worked together, but Milano has been criticized by some for taking credit for the movement begun by a Black woman.
1) You stole #metoo (a brilliant communication tool, not a movement) from Tarana. You co-opted my movement, the Cultural Reset, for fame, jealous of me for outing my rapist. You made 250k per week on Charmed. (Con’t) pic.twitter.com/d9HmnJEYXM
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 22, 2020
McGowan also accused Milano of being jealous of the attention she received for exposing Harvey Weinstein, saying that she also co-opted her movement. And then, Rose finally gets to the stuff about Charmed. She noted that Milano was making $250k per episode, and says that Alyssa “threw a fit in front of the crew”, and claimed she was not paid enough. She went on to say that Alyssa Milano exhibited “appalling behavior on the daily.”
2) You threw a fit in front of the crew, yelling, ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this shit!’ Appalling behavior on the daily. I cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF. Now, get off my coattails you fucking fraud.
— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) August 22, 2020
By far, the best part of all these tweets are the last two sentences that Rose wrote about Alyssa. “I cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF.” THE DRAMA IS REAL. I need a tell-all book about what happened on the set of Charmed, because there are not nearly enough details here. To say that she cried every year they got renewed sounds incredibly dramatic, but what was Alyssa Milano actually doing on that set??? Whose side is Holly Marie Combs on? And even though Rose never overlapped with Shannen Doherty on the show, I still need to hear her full side of the story.
And finally, “Now, get off my coattails you f*cking fraud.” Honestly, this is art. This is what I’m going to say from now on any time someone is bothering me. Someone asks me for a favor? Get off my coattails you f*cking fraud. Rose McGowan is truly a wordsmith.
Rose’s tweets are mostly where the drama ended, so sadly I don’t think we’ll be getting any more anecdotes about the “toxic AF” Charmed set. but Alyssa couldn’t let this go without one last statement.
Commenting further doesn’t align with my wellness plan.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) August 22, 2020
God, everything about this is iconic. I have no idea whose side I’m on, and there are approximately one million layers to the dynamic here, but I enjoyed every second of this feud. Oh, and also, whether you think Democrats have accomplished much or not, please vote—it’s important!
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Images: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com; rosemcgowan, alyssamilano / Twitter
Last night, the New York Times broke a horrifying, heartbreaking story on Asia Argento, one of the first public accusers of Harvey Weinstein. The report states that Argento paid $380,000 to Jimmy Bennett, an actor who accused her of sexually assaulting him in 2013. (*Cue enormous wave of people taking this as a reason to discredit the entire #MeToo movement.) Neither Argento nor her representatives have commented at this time, but here’s what we do know about their relationship.
In 2004, Bennet played Argento’s son in the film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. They exchanged friendly messages on Twitter and Instagram through 2012 (Bennett’s Twitter is now inactive.) In 2018, Bennett filed a notice of intent to sue against Argento. In the notice, he details a May 9, 2013 meeting with Argento in her Marina del Rey hotel room. Bennett was 17 at the time; Argento was 37. The legal age of consent in California is 18. Bennett claims Argento requested to be alone with him, gave him alcohol, performed oral sex and then had intercourse with him. She then asked to take photos of him. The photographs allegedly taken on this day, of the two of them partially clothed in bed, were included in the notice sent by Bennett. The following Instagram posts from the day in question were also included. I wouldn’t recommend reading the comments if you wanted to eat or sleep tonight.
Not much is known about the contact between the two following the alleged incident, with the exception of one Twitter message sent by Bennett on June 8, 2013, saying “Miss you momma!!!!” In the 2018 notice of intent to sue, Bennett requests $3.5 million in damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery, highlighting the harm to his mental health and subsequent hits to his career. Argento’s lawyers agreed to a settlement of $380,000. In exchange, Bennett relinquished the right to sue Argento, or post the photograph taken of the two partially clothed in 2013. The settlement does not include a non-disclosure agreement. In an April 2018 letter, Argento’s lawyer claims the decision to omit non-disclosure language was because Argento “felt it was inconsistent with the public messages conveyed about the societal perils of non-disclosure agreements.”
Since the settlement, only one instance of contact has been logged between Argento and Bennett, when she liked an Instagram post on July 17. While neither Argento nor Bennett are speaking to the press, other members of the #MeToo movement have come forward, stating their disappointment, heartbreak, and an urging not to let this story destroy the message of #MeToo.
I’ve said repeatedly that the #metooMVMT is for all of us, including these brave young men who are now coming forward. It will continue to be jarring when we hear the names of some of our faves connected to sexual violence unless we shift from talking about individuals [+]
— Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018
So, yeah. What a terrible day, what a terrible year. It hurts to see any story as painful as this come forward, it hurts to hear this about a woman I admired, and it hurts me to think how this story will be used to further attack the voices of #MeToo. I’m sure I’ll pitch a dozen more thinkpieces on this this week, but for now I’m too dazed and too sad. I’d like to say at least this week can’t get any worse but hey, Trump still has the nuclear codes. So let’s just buckle in and see where this shitstorm takes us.
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