Rose McGowan (right) has hit back at a Variety column that criticised Renée Zellweger.

Last week Gleiberman — who is a relatively new writer at Variety — wrote a column titled “Renée Zellweger: If she notlonger looks like herself, has she become a different actress?”

In it he says that after watching the trailer for her new film Bridget Jones’s Baby, he realised that he had not grown accustomed to Zellweger’s face at the age of 47.

“Watching the trailer, I didn’t stare at the actress and think: She doesn’t look like Renée Zellweger. I thought: She doesn’t look like Bridget Jones!

”Celebrities, like anyone else, have the right to look however they want, but the characters they play become part of us. I suddenly felt like something had been taken away.”

Gleiberman is not the first to comment on Zellweger’s “new look” — she made headlines around the world in 2014 when she attended a red carpet event after being out of the spotlight for a spell.

Left: Renée Zellweger arrives at ELLE's 21st Annual Women In Hollywood event in 2014 and right: Zellweger in an earlier Bridget Jones film.Source:Supplied

Following media speculation that Zellweger had gone under the knife, she responded with a statement to People:

“I’m glad folks think I look different! I’m living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I’m thrilled that perhaps it shows,” said Zellweger.

“It seems the folks who come digging around for some nefarious truth which doesn’t exist won’t get off my porch until I answer the door.”

After reading Gleiberman’s piece, actor Rose McGowan (who rose to fame after appearing in the TV series Charmed) felt compelled to write an op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter defending the actor.

Rose McGowan (right) in ‘Charmed’.Source:News Limited

“Renée Zellweger is a human being, with feelings, with a life, with love and with triumphs and struggles, just like the rest of us,” McGowan wrote.

“How dare you use her as a punching bag in your mistaken attempt to make a mark at your new job. How dare you bully a woman who has done nothing but try to entertain people like you. Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve of anything? What you are doing is vile, damaging, stupid and cruel. It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege. So assured are you in your place in the firmament that is Hollywood, you felt it was OK to do this. And your editors at Variety felt this was more than OK to run.”

“You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women,” she continues.

“I speak as someone who was abused by Hollywood and by people like you in the media, but I’m a different breed, one they didn’t count on.”

She ends her response with the scathing comment:

“Let’s talk about Hollywood writers: Joan Didion, John Fante, Raymond Chandler, Robert Towne, Dorothy Parker, John Gregory Dunne, Preston Sturges, I.A.L. Diamond, Pauline Kael and Billy Wilder. These were writers on Hollywood.

“You, Owen Gleiberman, are not they.

“You are simply a bully on semiglossy paper.”

Rose McGowan.Source:Getty Images

McGowen made headlines last year after revealing she was fired by her agent for pointing out sexism in a casting call for an Adam Sandler movie.

Her response to Gleiberman’s column has been met with an overwhelmingly positive response from fellow female actors in Hollywood.

Her ex Charmed co-star Alyssa Milano and Australian actor Teresa Palmer tweeted their support:

Gleiberman declined to comment on McGowan’s piece.