I’m sure this story isn’t as interesting as I find it, but this relationship has been intriguing me from the start. Back in 2006, Sin City director Robert Rodriguez met actress Rose McGowan while he was directing Grindhouse. Within a few months, Robert’s 16-year marriage to his wife and producing partner Elizabeth Avellan was over, and Robert and Rose were together. Robert later claimed that he and Elizabeth had been separated before he got together with Rose, but there was no legal paperwork filed, and I always found the timing a bit sketchy. Still, Robert and Elizabeth have five children together, and Elizabeth has remained Robert’s producing partner, so maybe their eventual 2008 divorce was totally amicable.

Since Rose and Robert got together – even getting engaged in 2007 – Robert has tried to make her into his muse and star of several projects that never quite got off the ground. There were rumors that no studio want to pay for any film with Rose in the starring role – and Robert’s inability to create a project for his lover is said to have caused considerable tension in their relationship. Now Radar is reporting that Rose has called off the engagement!

Rose McGowan has broken off her engagement to director Robert Rodriguez an inside source told RadarOnline.com exclusively.

McGowan recently filmed Rodriguez’s action-packed Machete- which co-stars Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba and Robert De Niro- in Austin, Texas and will next star in the she-devil comic book adaptation Red Sonja. Rodriguez is set to produce the film so maybe a reconciliation isn’t completely out of the cards?

Reps for the couple did not immediately respond for request to comment.

The couple officially announced their engagement in October 2007 after becoming romantically involved in 2006 on the set of the Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, which was directed by Rodriguez and starred McGowan as a stripper with a machine-gun leg.

It was widely speculated at the time that their relationship was the reason Rodriguez divorced his wife of 16 years, producer Elizabeth Avellán. The director later issued a statement saying that he and Avellán had separated long before production began on the film.

McGowan, 36, and Rodriguez, 41, went public with their relationship in May 2007 when they arrived hand-in-hand at the Cannes Film Festival. They have been together ever since, despite false rumors that they had split up last year after financing for a Rodriguez-planned Barbarella remake starring McGowan fell through.

[From Radar]

Of course we don’t know what really happened. My guess is that it was about their careers more than their love. Robert was totally enamored with Rose – and he really did try his best to get studios to pony up major projects with Rose in the lead, like Barbarella, which was dead on arrival with Rose in the lead. There’s also Red Sonja, a film that Robert announced last year, but still hasn’t been made. Rose just took a supporting part in Robert’s Machete – and her billing is lower than Lindsay Lohan’s. Yeah, I would question an engagement if my director fiancée billed me lower than Lohan too.

Rose McGowan’s and director Robert Rodriguez have broken up, according to the New York Post. They met while filming Grindhouse in the spring of 2006, and got engaged this past October. The pair started their relationship while Rodriguez was still married to his wife of 16 years, with whom he has five children.x

Apparently their breakup had a lot to do with business. How romantic. Rodriguez was having trouble getting financing for his upcoming remake of Barbarella, in which McGowan was to star. In fact, she was the reason he couldn’t get enough funding.

Rose McGowan’s breakup with her fiancé, director Robert Rodriguez, could be good news for some other actresses, who could end up with the leading roles she was set to play in his movies. McGowan was hoping to star in at least three planned Rodriguez films – a remake of “Barbarella,” “Red Sonja” and “Woman in Chains!”

But sources say the couple, who we reported last October were engaged, have split, partly over the problems Rodriguez had finding financing for “Barbarella” – the 1968 cult classic in which Jane Fonda played a sexy space adven- turess – with McGowan in the title role.

McGowan, best known for her witchy role on TV’s “Charmed,” wasn’t thought to have enough box-office draw for the $70 million remake, especially after “Grindhouse” disappointed with about $25.4 million in domestic ticket sales.

“Too bad ‘Grindhouse’ didn’t gross $100 million. Then, maybe, ‘Barbarella’ would have gotten the green light,” said one source. “Instead, the moguls were saying, ‘We need a bigger star, a bigger name.’ ” Jessica Alba has been touted as a possible replacement.

[From the Daily News]

It sounds like McGowan and Rodriguez’s entire relationship was a great example of why you shouldn’t mix business and love. Rodriguez appeared to view McGowan as his muse, and seemed pretty willing to put all of his eggs in her basket, so to speak. I’ve never found her to be anything exceptional as an actress. It seems like their breakup may benefit everyone. A few other actresses will likely get a shot at McGowan’s roles, Rodriguez will get some better talent, and his ex-wife will probably be smugly satisfied.

Here’s Rose McGowan at the Neil George salon in Beverly Hills carrying her bulldog and wearing a cast on her foot on June 7th. Images thanks to WENN. Header of Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS event in France on May 23rd, 2007. Photographer Z.Tomaszewski; Image thanks to WENN.