'Please do not kill us': Rose McGowan apologizes to Iran on Twitter after U.S. airstrike

Actress Rose McGowan said she was 'taking one for the team'. Photo / Getty Images

In the hours after a U.S. airstrike in Iraq killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and heightened diplomatic tensions worldwide, actress Rose McGowan apologized to Iran for her home country's behavior in a series of charged tweets.

"Dear #Iran," McGowan wrote in her first post. "The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people." She said that "52% of us humbly apologize," though it was unclear what that percentage was in reference to.

"We want peace with your nation," McGowan continued. "We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us."

McGowan, who has been vocal against alleged sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, often weighs into the political and pop culture talking points of the day. On Friday, she took on foreign relations - and drew sharp rebukes from both critics and supporters of the president.

"Thanks a lot," McGowan wrote in a different tweet directed at President Donald Trump in which she called the president a vulgar name.

In the wake of Soleimani's death, Iran's defense minister Amir Hatami said the country would answer the U.S. airstrike ordered by Trump with a "crushing" response. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement that "severe revenge awaits those criminals who have tainted their filthy hands with his blood."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the airstrike was carried out against Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, because he was plotting attacks against Americans in the region. Soleimani has been linked to the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq, according to Washington Post reporting.

Responding to criticism about her remarks, McGowan acknowledged that Soleimani was an "evil man who did evil evil things." She said in a tweet that she wrote her initial apology because the U.S. "is morally corrupt and acts illegally."

"It is only logical to appeal to Iran's pride by apologizing," McGowan said. "I'm taking one for the team."

She used the hashtag #TeamStayAlive in several more tweets that touched on Republicans, Democrats and her voting habits.

In her final tweet on the topic, she couched her earlier comments by saying that she "freaked out because we may have (an) impending war."

"Sometimes it's okay to freak out on those in power," McGowan wrote. "It's our right. That is what so many Brave soldiers have fought for. That is democracy. I do not want any more American soldiers killed. That's it."