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Rose McGowan reveals how she escaped cult in fear of rape as a child

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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As one of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers and a leading player in the MeToo movement, Rose McGowan made headlines. Long before this, the Hollywood star had a difficult upbringing.

McGowan’s first nine years were far from typical. They were spent in the Children of God cult, which celebrated the joys of free love while preparing for Jesus’ return.

Despite the fact that it was a horrific experience – she says she escaped with her family after the cult began pushing child-adult sexual relations – the actress, 38, who rose to stardom on TV’s Charmed and currently plays in Conan the Barbarian 3D, remembers the setting as “really idyllic” at first.

“The commune I grew up in, a thing called Children of God… I was definitely a thorn in their side,” actor and activist Rose McGowan recalls of the religious cult in which she spent her infancy in Italy.

“We left because they started advocating child-adult sex and that was too far for my father, so we escaped,” she says in the latest edition of The Irish Times’ Back to Yours podcast with Róisn Ingle.

COG members were obliged to submit all of their money and personal goods to the leaders of local households, according to the article. In 1974, the attorney general’s office in New York estimated that there were about 120 communes across the world. By 2006, the number had risen to over 1,400 across 100 countries, according to the organization.

“My dad was strong enough to realize that this hippie love had gone south,” she says of when her father became concerned that Rose would be assaulted.

She migrated to the United States with her father and siblings after fleeing the Children of God. “It was not an easy assimilation,” McGowan says, into the mainstream way of life. “My brothers and sisters, we thought everyone was boring.”

McGowan claims she ran away from home after an awkward absorption into American culture and was momentarily taken up by drag queens before returning to live with her father.

‘There are people who will read this story and think I had a strange existence,’ she says. ‘I think they’ve had a strange existence.

She is, however, glad she and her family left the tumultuous group when they did.

‘There’s a trail of some very damaged children that were in this group,’ she says. ‘As strong as I’ve always been, I’m sure I could have been broken. I know I got out by the skin of my teeth.’

COG became known for a number of sexual behaviors, including “flirty fishing,” which drew the attention of both the FBI and Interpol. COG had been accused of either turning a blind eye or actively encouraging incest, child abuse, and rape, according to the FBI, which classified the organization as a cult.

She returned to the little village in Italy with her then-boyfriend, musician Marilyn Manson, many years later. She acknowledges, “We created quite a stir.”

McGowan laughs off some of the hazards and hardships she experienced as she reflects on her early experiences. “I came out of the womb waving red lipstick,” she says, in contrast to the cult’s dressed-down hippy style.

Joaquin Phoenix, his late brother River, and their family are among the renowned children who spent part of their early childhoods inside the Children of God.