Rose McGowan is on tour to promote her new book Brave, and it got off to a rocky start earlier in the week when the actress got into a shouting match with a transgender woman during an appearance at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. McGowan has been promoting Brave on talk shows as well as book signings, but it appears that she has canceled all upcoming appearances after the meltdown at the bookstore. In a video of the altercation, a transgender woman asks Rose McGowan about some remarks that she made on RuPaul's podcast.
In the fan-shot video footage, it appears that Rose McGowan may have been answering questions from the audience when a woman in the back steps up and says, "trans women are dying, and you said that we, as trans women, are not like regular women." She was referencing McGowan's comments on RuPaul's What's The Tee? podcast back in July of last year. The actress and woman's rights activist instantly gets angry and unleashes on the woman. Rose McGowan kept shouting, "we're the same!" back at the woman to the shock of the crowd in the bookstore.
The woman began to shout back, "this is white cis feminism!" at the top of her lungs as she was being escorted out of the building. Rose McGowan continued to shout back well after the woman was out of sight. She said.
"Don't label me, sister. Don't put your labels on me, don't you f%$#ing do that. Do not put your label on me, I don't come from your planet, leave me alone. What I do is for the f%$#ing world, and you should be f%$#ing grateful! So shut the f%$#up. Get off my back, what have you done?"
The audience is clearly on Rose McGowan's side in the video, shouting words of encouragement her way. McGowan continued to rant before being able to calm down.
The fan-shot video then jumps up a few minutes to a calm Rose McGowan. She's still visibly not happy, but she finds the time to explain herself in a calm way. It's not clear how far ahead the video jumps, but the woman is long gone by this point. McGowan explains.
"Trans women are women. What I'm trying and been trying to say is that it's actually identical. The stats are not that dissimilar. You break it down, it a much f%$#ing smaller population."
McGowan went on to talk about rape in a very graphic manner before picking up her book to read from again. The crowd cheers and she finally seems relaxed after the altercation.
After the incident, Rose McGowan took to social media to allege that the transgender woman was a paid actress and that she's quitting her promotional tour. She goes on to say that nobody in the building did anything, which isn't exactly true, as the video shows. The actress also lashed out at news websites for printing up the exact transcript of what was said in the altercation, taking extra time to tear into Variety. You can watch the video of the incident below, courtesy of Great Interesting Funny's YouTube channel.