She talked about it to People.com:
Although it proved a harrowing experience – she fled with her family, she says, once the cult began advocating child-adult sexual relations – as the setting at first “was really idyllic,” remembers the actress, 38, who rose to fame on TV’s Charmed and now stars in Conan the Barbarian 3D.
“I grew up in pastoral settings” – specifically, the Italian countryside, where her parent were members of the local branch of the Children of God. But McGowan, who was born in Florence, knew instinctively that she didn’t belong in such a place.
“I’ve always been who I am,” she says, explaining that while she did believe in God, she wasn’t in accord with the hippie lifestyle, and certainly not with their aesthetic or the subservient role of females in the sect.
Even at her tender age, McGowan rebelled. “I did not want to be like those women. There were basically there to serve the men sexually,” she says.
When her father began to fear that Rose might be molested, she says, “My dad was strong enough to realize that this hippie love had gone south.”