Asia Argento threatened to take legal action against Rose McGowan on Monday. The actress was waiting for McGowan to retract claims made in a public statement regarding nude photos Argento allegedly received from actor Jimmy Bennett while he was underage.
"Dear @RoseMcGowan. It is with genuine regret that I am giving you 24 hours to retract and apologise for the horrendous lies made against me in your statement of August 27th. If you fail to address this libel I will have no option other than to take immediate legal action," Argento tweeted.
Argento was accused by Bennett of sexually assaulting him when he was 17 and she was 37. McGowan initially revealed she knew Argento had received nude photos from Bennett. In her first statement about the matter, McGowan said Argento had been receiving inappropriate pictures of Bennett since he was 12. McGowan said her partner, model Rain Dove, informed her of the texts between Argento and Bennett. (McGowan used gender-neutral pronouns when referring to Dove.)
"I received a phone call and series of messages from the being I've been dating — Rain Dove," McGowan wrote in her statement last month. "They said that they had been texting with Asia and that Asia had revealed that she had indeed slept with Jimmy Bennett. Rain also shared that Asia had stated that she'd been receiving unsolicited nudes of Jimmy since he had been 12."
Bennett was 17 when he allegedly texted Argento the photos of himself, according to a text message exchange between Argento and Dove.
Dove, who also made a statement regarding Argento's relationship with Bennett, later clarified on Twitter that Bennett's age was misinterpreted in the initial text conversation Dove had with Argento regarding the photographs.
Dove's tweet has since been deleted, but Argento shared a screenshot of Dove's statement in early September. At the time, Argento also asked McGowan to correct her statement and clarify that she hadn't received nude photos from Bennett since he was 12.
McGowan has yet to publicly respond to any of Argento's tweets.
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