British comic Jeff Leach claims Asia Argento sent him unsolicited nude photos of herself.
Leach, who says he had a girlfriend at the time and did not appreciate the photos, told this story back in June during an appearance on a local podcast. Due to this week’s news about Argento settling a $380,000 underage sexual assault claim, the Leach story is just now making the rounds.
Asia Argento … she was part of this whole speech at Cannes recently about how “we’re coming for you.” That chick sent me a picture of her titties on Snapchat when I was with my girlfriend; she knew I was with my girlfriend — we were friends, and she just sends me this fucking video with her fucking tits out. And I replied, “You know, you can’t send me that shit…” She was like, “I do that to all my friends, I just send them videos and photos, it’s not sexual.” And I’m like “Get fucked, you know my girlfriend is not going to like this shit.”
[…]
That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been assaulted or hurt by bad people, I’m just saying that maybe [she’s] not the best fucking spokes[person] for it.
Argento, who, since October, was seen as one of the leaders of the #MeToo movement after she accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape, was herself accused of a sexual assault involving a minor.
The alleged assault involved former child actor Jimmy Bennett, who says he was only 17 when the 2013 incident occurred in California, where the age of consent is 18.
According to Bennett, the episode was emotionally devastating because he has seen Argento as a mother figure ever since the two of them starred together in a movie (as mother and son) in 2004. At that time Bennett was only seven; Argento was 27.
Argento admits to paying Bennett off (out of fear and pity) but denies the two of them had sex. Photos and text messages subsequently published by TMZ (which Argento has not denied) say different.
Argento is also under fire after her statement about the payoff appeared to put the blame on Anthony Bourdain, her former boyfriend, the celebrity chef who committed suicide back in June.
The allegation Argento sent unsolicited nude photos of herself to a man with or without a girlfriend is also a serious one; an act of sexual harassment akin to opening your raincoat to flash someone without their consent.
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