Italian actor and director Asia Argento accused director Rob Cohen of sexually abusing her while she was filming “xXx”, directed by Cohen, a 2002 action film that also starred Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson. As Variety reports, Argento told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera that “[Cohen] abused me, making me drink GHB, he had a bottle. ”
GHB, or gamma-hydroxybutyrate, is a fast-acting anesthetic with a history of use in rape.
“At the time, I really didn’t know what it was. I woke up in the morning naked in your bed,” Argento told the newspaper. She confirmed the allegations to Variety in a text message on Sunday. She also said that a more detailed account of events involving Cohen, who is also known for directing “Fast and Furious”, will appear in her next memoir “Anatomy of a Wild Heart”, which will be released in Italy on Tuesday.
Cohen has been accused of sexual assault and abuse before. In 2019, his eldest daughter, Valkyrie Weather, accused him of harassing her as a child.
“When I was very young, Rob used my body for his own sexual satisfaction,” wrote Weather in a public Facebook post. “My mother witnessed one of the attacks when I was between two and two and a half years old and has since confirmed what she saw.”
Cohen’s first wife, Diana Mitzner, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that she witnessed the incident, while Cohen says the charges are “categorically false”. Several months later, an anonymous accuser – called “Jane” by The Huffington Post – claimed to the publication that the filmmaker raped her in 2015, and that she “regained consciousness in Cohen’s hotel room, naked, while the director assaulted her sexually. ”
In response to a detailed list of questions from the Huffington Post about the incident, Cohen’s lawyer, Martin Singer, sent a 13-page letter denying any wrongdoing.
“The proposed story is an outrageous defamatory hit, making extraordinarily offensive claims that my client has been involved in heinous sexual misconduct, criminal offense and other inappropriate behavior, which are vehemently contested and denied by my client,” wrote Singer.
According to Variety, knowledge of these incidents prompted Argento to present himself. A Cohen representative told Agence France-Presse on Friday that the charges against Cohen were “absolutely false”.
Argento became an important figure in the #MeToo movement when he spoke out against unfortunate film producer Harvey Weinstein in Ronan Farrow’s bombshell article for the New Yorker “From Aggressive Openings to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories”. Subsequently, Argento was accused of sexual assault by American actor Jimmy Bennett, who claims she assaulted him in a hotel room in California in 2013, when he was 17. Argento publicly countered that Bennett “sexually assaulted” her and that the late partner Anthony Bourdain had agreed to pay $ 380,000 as part of the deal.