Two days after the New York Times reported that Asia Argento paid $380,000 to a young actor who had accused her of sexual assault when he was just 17, the actress issued a denial that raises almost as many questions as it answers.
“I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article,” she said in a statement on Tuesday after the Times reported on a payment to Jimmy Bennett, a now-22-year-old actor-musician who had accused her of assault in 2013.
“I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false,” wrote Argento, who had directed Bennett and played his mother in the 2004 film “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.”