Robert Rodriguez Fires Back at Vanity Fair's 'Disappointing' Rose McGowan Story for 'Key Factual Errors'

On Wednesday, McGowan presented a startlingly different picture about the making of the 2007 horror movie -- one half of double feature "Grindhouse," executive produced by Harvey Weinstein -- than Rodriguez painted in an op-ed back in October as allegations against Weinstein were just starting to come to light. The new VF piece details McGowan alleging Rodriguez used the information about her alleged 1997 rape by Weinstein against her while shooting a scene in which a man, played by Quentin Tarantino, attacks her character.

"It is unfortunate that Vanity Fair reporter Evgenia Peretz did not reach out to me for comment or clarification, even after my widely reported statement in October 2017 regarding Rose McGowan and Harvey Weinstein," Rodriguez said Thursday in a statement. "It is deeply disappointing that the fact checkers at publishing house HarperOne did not reach out to me either. As a result, there are some key factual errors in the piece."

Rodriguez went on to say that although the inaccuracies "may appear" to put him at odds with McGowan, he has "no quarrel with her."

The article states Rodriguez used knowledge of her sexual assault "against her as a tool for mind games, starting with a scene in which Tarantino, playing a character in his movie, attacks McGowan's character."

The article further states, "In what McGowan interpreted as the ultimate act of cruelty, Rodriguez 'sold our film to my monster.'"

In his statement to the media telling his side of the story, Rodriguez added: "It's when publications don't fact check these basic things, you end up with something inaccurate that then has to be disqualified. And I don't want to have to disqualify it because I agree with what Rose is trying to do overall, which is continue to push for change both in our industry and beyond."

Below are four of the "key factual errors" Rodriguez spotted in the Vanity Fair piece:

I did not sell the movie to the Weinsteins. They had a first look on my next project, and I owed them two more after that. "Grindhouse," "Spykids 4" and "Sin City 2" fulfilled my obligations to them.

I met Rose in April of 2005. The Weinsteins began funding "Grindhouse" by at least the first week of November of 2005 because I was shooting the fake machete trailer for the film on November 16, 2005. I then started scouting locations and designing the production for "Grindhouse" with key crew members, hired and paid for by the Weinsteins, before Thanksgiving 2005.

Full pre-production on "Grindhouse" with the entire crew began on January 23, 2006, and principal photography began on March 17, 2006. Rose began filming March 26, 2006. The point is that it was already an official Weinstein movie for at least 5 months before principal production even began on the "Planet Terror" segment of "Grindhouse." There was certainly ample time for Rose to decide not to be in a film funded by the Weinsteins and reject the movie and the script before shooting ever began. And if she ever had a problem with making the movie for them, I would have completely understood, changed the role, and cast someone else.

The scene described in the Vanity Fair article where the rapist taunts the character played by Rose (before she turns around and stabs him in the eye and kills him) was in every draft of the script since the first draft issued to cast and crew dated January 24, 2006. Furthermore, that very scene wasn't even filmed until 5 months later, on June 28, 2006. Again, if there was any objection to the scene there was plenty of time to address it. It was never brought up as being an issue. In fact, the point of the scene was always to be empowering because it's when her character turns the tables against her oppressors.

McGowan appeared to have her own issue with the Vanity Fair piece on Wednesday as well.