Asia Argento Responds to Rose McGowan's Apology for Abuse Allegations -

Asia Argento took to Twitter on Thursday to accept an apology from her former friend Rose McGowan, who previously compared the Italian actress to their shared accused rapist Harvey Weinstein.

“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 pedophilia which I have been subjected to in real-life and online,” Argento wrote.

She added: “Now go on, live your life and stop hurting other people, will you Rose? Best wishes.”

Earlier this week, Argento sat down with DailyMailTV for her first televised interview since being accused of sexually assaulting former child actor Jimmy Bennett. During the segment, Argento spoke out against McGowan and McGowan’s partner, Rain Dove, who, according to Argento, said “that I was like Weinstein, like a serial predator.”

Last month, personal texts between Argento and Dove leaked to the press. The texts, which were interpreted by many to be evidence that Argento raped Bennett, were published by TMZ and Dove eventually came forward to say they handed them over to the police. In a recent tweet, Argento said she had plans to sue Dove and McGowan. She has claimed it was Bennett who sexually assaulted her in a California hotel room in 2013, and Argento says the leaked texts were selective and do not tell the whole story.

After the assault allegations made headlines, Argento — who was once considered a leading voice in the #MeToo movement alongside McGowan — was fired as a judge on Italy’s X Factor. Many prominent voices in the #MeToo moment distanced themselves and spoke out in support of Bennett coming forward with his claim.

On Thursday, McGowan apologized for her involvement and for the disparaging comments she made about Argento in August.

“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,” wrote McGowan. “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).

“I do not feel that it is my place to comment further on what happened at the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey hotel in May 2013, save to say that I now appreciate that it was not as I thought it was previously.

“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.”

Concluded McGowan, “I deeply regret not correcting my mistake sooner and apologize to Asia for not doing so.”

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

During her chat with DailyMailTV earlier this week, Argento claimed that Bennett only leveled the sexual assault allegations against her in an effort to extort her late ex, Anthony Bourdain, for money. The TV chef, who committed suicide in June at age 61, agreed to pay Bennett $380,000 in settlement money.

According to Argento, Bourdain said, “Let’s give the guy some money so that he will leave us alone in our relationship.” Argento then said that handing over the money to Bennett “worried me from the beginning.” She elaborated, “I didn’t want this payment to be made and that’s why I stopped paying him.”

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