Asia Argento recently denied the allegations that she sexually assaulted a teenager. But The Daily Beast reports that photos and messages leaked to TMZ appear to show her confessing to having sex with Jimmy Bennett, a former child star.
I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) August 21, 2018
The claim that Argento paid off Bennett, years after the alleged sexual contact when he was just 17, rocked the #MeToo movement, as Argento was one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. The Daily Beast writes that the leaked messages, supposedly from Argento to an unnamed friend, contain a confession from the actress to having sex with Bennett. In the messages, Argento says she didn’t know he was underage until she got a legal threat about the encounter. The Daily Beast writes that a leaked selfie also purports to show the two shirtless in bed together in a California hotel room in 2013.
Asia Argento and 17-Year-Old Boy in Bed in Sexual Encounter https://t.co/y6EeKOdPT7
— TMZ (@TMZ) August 22, 2018
The person TMZ identifies as Argento texts (according to The Daily Beast): “I had sex with him and it felt weird. I didn’t know he was a minor until the shakedown letter. The public knows nothing, only what [The New York Times] wrote. Which is one-sided. The shakedown letter. The horny kid jumped me.”
TMZ also published what it says is a note from Bennett to Argento in which he appears to confess he is in love with her. Argento allegedly sent a photo of the letter to a friend with the message: “He wrote me this afterwards and kept sending me unsolicited nudes all these years up until 2 weeks before the attorneys letter,” according to The Daily Beast.
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