Asia Argento has accused directorRob Cohen of sexually assaulting her in 2002.- Cohen denied her allegations, calling them "bewildering" in a statement sent from his spokesperson to Deadline.
- Cohen has been accused of sexual assault before by two women including his own daughter, which he also denies.
Asia Argento has accused "The Fast and The Furious" director Rob Cohen of drugging and sexually assaulting her, saying the incident took place while filming the 2002 movie "xXx."
Speaking first to Il Corriere della Sera and other Italian outlets, Argento said that Cohen, who directed "xXx," made her drink a bottle of GHB - a substance known for being a "date rape" drug.
A spokesperson for Cohen strongly denied the accusation. Insider has reached out to both Argento and Cohen for comment.
Variety reports that Argento told Il Corriere della Sera: "He abused me, making me drink GHB, he had a bottle of it."
She later followed up in a text message to Variety: "At the time, I really didn't know what it was. I woke up in the morning naked in his bed." The actress also told Variety that she talks about the allegations in her upcoming autobiography, "Anatomy of a Wild Heart," which is due out in Italy on January 26.
In a statement to Deadline, a representative for Cohen said: "Mr. Cohen categorically denies Asia Argento's accusation of assault against him as absolutely false. When they worked together, they had an excellent working relationship and Mr. Cohen considered her a friend, so this claim dating back to 2002 is bewildering, especially given what has been reported about her in recent years."
Cohen has been accused of sexual assault before. In 2019, Cohen's transgender daughter Valkyrie Weather accused the director of sexually assaulting them when they were a child.
Weather's mother and Cohen's first wife, Diana Mitzer, told the Hollywood Reporter in 2019 that she saw the alleged assault. Cohen denied all of these accusations, calling them "categorically untrue."
Weather also said that Cohen took them to see sex workers in Thailand when she was a teen, and accused Cohen of bragging to her about sexually assaulting another woman, who remains unidentified. Again, Cohen denied these accusations.
Also in 2019, the Huffington Post reported that another woman accused Cohen of sexual assault. The woman, named only as "Jane" in the report, alleged that she met Cohen for a business meeting, but ended up in his hotel room. The woman said she regained consciousness naked while Cohen was sexually assaulting her.
Cohen's lawyer, Martin Singer, sent a lengthy letter denying the 2019 claims on Cohen's behalf: "The proposed story is an outrageous defamatory hit piece, making extraordinarily offensive assertions that my client engaged in heinous sexual misconduct, criminal wrongdoing, and other inappropriate behavior, which are vehemently disputed and denied by my client."
Argento was a prominent figure during the #MeToo movement, and accused Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. Argento followed this up with a speech at Cannes in 2018 during which she accused Weinstein of raping her when she was 21. Weinstein was eventually convicted in February 2020 of sexually assaulting his former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and raping ex-actress Jessica Mann in 2013.
A sexual-assault accusation has also been made against Argento.
Later in 2018, the New York Times reported that Argento "quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser."
The accuser was actor Jimmy Bennett, who claimed that Argento sexually assaulted him in California in 2013 when he was 17 and she was 37. The age of consent in California is 18. The two had previously worked together on the 2004 movie "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," in which Bennett played Argento's son.
Argento denied the allegations and said that she never had a sexual encounter with Bennett. She also said that her late boyfriend, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, paid Bennet off privately to avoid negative press attention.
Text messages and a photo of the two of them in bed together surfaced soon after her denial. In a letter published online in 2018 by Argento's attorney, the actress did admit that there was a sexual encounter between her and Bennett, but accused Bennett of "sexually attacking" her.