Rose McGowan’s ongoing feud with Alyssa Milano just escalated again with an online spat for the ages.
The inciting incident for all this? Some political tweets, naturally. On Thursday McGowan vented her frustration with the Democratic Party: “What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING?” she wrote. 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.”
McGowan subsequently responded to some of the criticisms aired in the replies to her tweet‚ adding at one point, “I am an equal opportunity hater. American voters/cult members have been hoodwinked for years into believing they have to live with a lesser of two evils. Wake up. Demand more.”
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But on Friday, Milano waded in. And that’s when things turned personal.
In a tweet that included a screenshot of McGowan’s initial message, Milano wrote, “A thread of all the things the Democratic Party has done to make the world a better place. Let’s start here: 1920 19TH AMENDMENT: WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE Under the leadership of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, the U.S. Constitution was amended to grant women the right to vote.
Milano went on to add several more landmark policies in the replies, alongside her followers. But McGowan was unimpressed.
“Ummm... did you conveniently forget only WHITE WOMEN got the right to vote?” she wrote in a retweet. “They betrayed all others. To quote Marilyn Manson, ‘I was not born with enough middle fingers.’
“If I had been the leader of the Suffragettes, I would have waited and fought for EVERYONE’S right to vote,” McGowan added. “They fucked up. And you wonder why Black Women think white feminists are frauds. Most are.”
But it was later on Friday night when McGowan took things a step further.
“1) You stole #metoo (a brilliant communication tool, not a movement) from Tarana [Burke],” McGowan wrote. “You co-opted my movement, the Cultural Reset, for fame, jealous of me for outing my rapist. You made 250k per week on Charmed... 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.”
And in a third tweet, McGowan reposted a 2018 ABC Nightline interview in which she said of Milano, “I don’t like her ’cause I think she’s a lie.”
It was that interview that first began the public feud between McGowan and Milano. The two tend to ignore each other as they share remnants of their shared past on Charmed, sharing images that do not include one another or declining to tag each other.
Speaking with ABC in 2018, McGowan said of Milano, “I’m not looking at this from the outside. I have a lot of experience. I know [Milano is] married to a [Creative Artists Agency] agent. Do the math. Who’s behind Time’s Up? CAA. Where do they meet? CAA? Who needs good PR? CAA. Who are part of the pimp problem? CAA.”
In her own statement to ABC at the time, Milano said, “I am and always have been completely supportive of Rose and admire her bravery and speaking out about her experiences... My goal throughout the past few months with both #MeToo and the TimesUp movement has been to use my platform to give others a voice so we can all work together to stamp out sexual harassment and sexual assault.”
CAA did not respond to Nightline’s request for comment back then.
Late Friday night, Milano apparently noticed that the hashtag #AlyssaMilanoIsALie had picked up steam, writing, “Do you think we can get #AlyssaMilanoIsALie to trend number 1 before I fall asleep?”
The #AlyssaMilanoIsALie hashtag now includes tweets both praising and bashing Milano.
But Milano wasn’t the only person McGowan sparred with on Friday; Patricia Arquette entered the fray as well.
Replying to McGowan’s initial DNC tweet, Arquette wrote, “Without Democrats we wouldn’t have LGBT marriage. The Violence Against Women Act. Prexisting [sic] condition protections for healthcare, we wouldn’t have had 2 more states pass Equal Rights for women legislation, rape kit processing for backlog.”
“Are you too young to remember Republicans calling black moms on welfare ‘welfare queens?’ The Republicans did that,” Arquette added.
McGowan retweeted Arquette. Her response? “Drone bomb me.”
In a retweet of Arquette’s reply regarding Black mothers, McGowan added, “And did you forget Joe Biden terrorizing Anita Hill? Did you forget all the drone bombing in other countries done by your beloved Democrats? Did you forget Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Did you forget them letting prisons be privatized?”
And in one last retweet of Arquette, McGowan wrote, “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.”
