Naked in bed, MeToo Asia and boy of 17 she denied having sex with
HARVEY Weinstein rape accuser Asia Argento admitted having illicit sex with a former child star in a series of texts allegedly sent by her to a friend.
The messages emerged yesterday alongside a photo that appeared to show the actress, who was 37 at the time, naked in bed in a California hotel room with Jimmy Bennett, who was then 17. The age of consent in the US state is 18.
Ms Argento had insisted on Tuesday that she had ‘never had any sexual relationship’ with the teenager after reports that she paid him $380,000 (€335,000) to stop a legal case against her.
But in the text messages obtained by the showbiz gossip website TMZ yesterday, the star appears to acknowledge that the pair had sex in 2013 but claimed the ‘horny kid jumped me’. In one of the messages, Ms Argento, now 42, tried to justify having sex with Bennett, saying: ‘When I was 17, I was with a 33-year-old man for years.’
The horny kid jumped me ... I had sex with him it felt weird Alleged text from Asia Argento to a friend ‘I didn’t know he was a minor’
But on Monday the New York Times reported that she had been served with a notice to sue by lawyers for Bennett, who accused her of ‘sexual battery’.
The texts released yesterday appear to contradict her strenuous denials on Tuesday.
One of the messages said: ‘I had sex with him it felt weird. I didn’t know he was a minor until the shakedown letter. The public knows nothing, only what NYT wrote. Which is one sided.’
Ms Argento has known Bennett, now 22, since he was seven, when he played her son in her 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, which she directed.
They have met up again several times and the actress has referred to him as ‘my son’ on social media.
Asked in the series of messages about the picture of her and Bennett apparently in bed together, she responded: ‘You can see my t***. That’s all. It doesn’t mean s***.’
The legal notice claims Ms Argento lured the teenager to her room and plied him with alcohol before performing a sex act on him.
Bennett’s lawyers claimed the ‘sexual battery’ was so traumatic it affected his acting career.
Ms Argento, who dated chef Anthony Bourdain until his suicide in June, settled the claim out of court earlier this year for $380,000.