Rose McGowan was born in Florence, Italy in 1975 and was raised in Italy on a commune of the Children of God cult. Her parents moved back to the United States when Rose was ten.

The McGowan family (including 6 children, with Rose as the second oldest) relocated to Oregon when Rose was ten years old. Five years later, Rose left the commune and took off to live on her own, supporting herself with several odd jobs.

She then worked in a variety of jobs, and often had to lie about her age to get them. She worked as a waitress, sales clerk, ticket taker and other minimum wage jobs. She was even forced to live on the streets for a while.

In 1996, Rose was cast alongside Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox Arquette in the hit thriller, Scream, as well as the tacky Pauly Shore comedy Bio-Dome. In 1997, Rose appeared in another Araki film, Nowhere, and she starred in Lewis & Clark & George and the film short Seed.

Speaking of the shock rocker himself, Marilyn Manson (a.k.a Brian Warner) has been romantically linked to Rose for the past couple of years, and their romance has been highly publicized. The two were engaged in February of 1999, after the singer proposed to Rose while in the bathtub together.