Rob Cohen, the director of The Fast and the Furious (the one that started it all in 2001), has been accused of sexually assaulting actress Asia Argento, who has herself been accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy.
Let’s start with Cohen…
About two years ago, Cohen’s transgender daughter (does that means she’s pretending to be a he?, or he’s pretending to be a she? — I can’t even keep track of this shit), whose name is — get this — Valkyrie Weather, accused Cohen of sexual assaulting him/her as a child. Something about trying to turn him/her straight by way of sex workers in Thailand.
About seven months later, some other unidentified person accused Cohen of sexual assault.
So that’s the skinny on Cohen.
Let’s get you up to speed on Argento…
A few years back, Asia Argento tried to ride the #MeToo wave by accusing disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, even though she had a five-year relationship with him after the alleged assault.
While riding that wave, she was herself accused of sexually assaulting Jimmy Bennett in 2013, just two months after he turned 17. Bennett had played Argento’s son in a 2004 movie Argento directed and starred in, which was — as it was later discovered — based on an autobiographical hoax written by Laura Albert, who pretended to be a young, gender fluid gay kid named JT LeRoy.
According to a documentary about LeRoy, Argento used sex to obtain the rights to LeRoy’s autobiography. Which, if true, meant she was having sex with a 25-year-old lesbian woman posing as JT LeRoy, a teen-aged gay boy who wanted to be a woman.
Anyway, Argento at first said that nothing ever happened between her and Bennett. After photos of the two of them in bed together were released, she then said he sexually assaulted her. Then she reportedly paid him $380,000 in a settlement.
Argento has also been accused of sending unsolicited nude photos to some guy.
Bennett has himself been accused of sexual misconduct involving stalking, statutory rape, and child pornography (though the complaint was dismissed in about a month).
You still with me…?
So now, after 19 years, and just before her own autobiography is set to come out, Argento is accusing Cohen of assaulting her during the filming of XxX (2002). “At the time, I really didn’t know what it was. I woke up in the morning naked in his bed.” She says Cohen slipped her a date rape drug.
Cohen denies all wrongdoing.
Bennett denies all wrongdoing.
Weinstein denies all wrongdoing.
Argento denies all wrongdoing.
Albert admits she invented JT LeRoy.
Valkyrie Weather is still named Valkyrie Weather, and I need a bath.
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