#MeToo leader’s child sex payoff

The New York Times reported recently that Asia Argento, 42, paid actor Jimmy Bennett, both pictured, $380 000 (R5.4 million) in hush money after having sex with him in a Los Angeles hotel in 2013, when he was only 17 – and thus underage.

The #MeToo campaign has proved an irresistible force since emerging from the carnage of Hollywood’s abuse and harassment scandal, dominating the conversation on sexual misconduct.

But it’s facing its own backlash following the abuse claims against Italian actress Argento, one of its leaders and an early accuser of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Argento has denied the allegations, dismissing them as “long-standing persecution”, but faces the possibility of losing her job as a judge on TV talent show X Factor Italy.

The case has cast a pall over #MeToo, already under fire from those who say it has ruined the lives of numerous powerful men on the basis of accusations that are rarely vindicated by the judicial process.

Argento became a powerful #MeToo voice after accusing Weinstein of raping her when she was 21.

She said the rape took place in his hotel room in 1997 during the Cannes film festival.

Tarana Burke, founder of the movement named by Time magazine as its 2017 Person of the Year, is acutely aware of the tricky terrain the #MeToo movement now finds itself negotiating.

“People will use these recent news stories to try and discredit this movement.

“Don’t let that happen,” she tweeted. –