Actress and director Amy Seimetz accused her ex-boyfriend, director Shane Carruth, of years of emotional and physical abuse that include an attempt to strangle her on a bed, according to court documents obtained by TheWrap.
Seimetz, who directed the TV series “The Girlfriend Experience” and starred in “Pet Sematary,” filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County on June 12. In it, she described several instances during their relationship, which she said began around December 2011 and officially ended in January 2018, where she says Carruth had “fits of rage and angry outbursts that led to him becoming emotionally, mentally, and physically abusive.”
Seimetz says that in October 2016, Carruth strangled her on a hotel room bed in New York, where she was staying while working on a film. She says that Carruth “was upset that I had gone to a dinner meeting with co-workers.”
“He then jumped on top of me and began strangling me with his hands,” she said. “I feared that Mr. Carruth would kill me and tried to tell Mr. Carruth to stop. As I began struggling to breathe, Mr. Carruth finally stopped strangling me.”
Seimetz said it was after this incident that Carruth “began to verbally and emotionally abuse” her on a daily basis, adding that he would yell at her and call her names, as well as send her “abusive and harassing text messages and emails.” The physical abuse continued as well, she said, and left her with bruises on her body.
TheWrap reached out to a representative for Carruth for comment but has yet to hear back.
Seimetz said she tried to leave the relationship “on several occasions” but felt “a sense of responsibility to return to the relationship” when Carruth would overwhelm her with emails and text messages. The messages would ask for her to come back, she said, and would leave her believing “he was in a state of despair and possibly suicidal.”
According to the documents, Seimetz had previously obtained a restraining order against Carruth in August 2018, after which, Seimetz said, he wrote to her in an email, “You want to fight me? Bring it. I will kill you.”
Seimetz said these messages continued through 2020 and became “even more intense” in the months leading to her filing for the current restraining order.
The temporary restraining order was granted and then served to Carruth on June 15, and a hearing to make the order permanent is scheduled for Tuesday, July 28.
Carruth’s 2004 film “Primer” won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and his next feature “Upstream Color,” starred both him and Seimetz.
