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.

She greeted the millennium with two films, Ready to Rumble and Monkeybone But it was on TV that she gained her greatest fame when in 2001, she was cast as Paige Matthews, the long-lost, baby half-sister of Prue, Piper and Phoebe on the hit series Charmed. She was cast after Shannen Doherty, who played eldest sister Prue Halliwell, was fired when she refused to sign a two-year contract extension.

Currently McGowan lives in Los Angeles, California with her two dogs and is dating her Grindhouse director, Robert Rodriguez.