Leaked text messages appear to reveal #MeToo advocate Asia Argento admitting she had sex with an underage male co-star.
The Marie Antoinette star became a major proponent for the campaign against sexual assault after she accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape last year.
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Argento denied the allegations against her after a New York Times article reported they had obtained legal documents showing she had paid her accuser, Jimmy Bennett, US$380,000.
"I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett," she said in a statement to the Huffington Post.
Now, TMZ has obtained a leaked image of a 37-year-old Argento in bed with a 17-year-old Bennett in 2013, allegedly taken by Argento after the sexual assault occurred.
In California, where the sexual assault is said to have taken place, the legal age of consent is 18.
The gossip website has also published a raft of private text messages, said to be between Argento and a friend in the midst of the backlash from the New York Times story.
"I had sex with him it felt weird. I didn't know he was a minor until the shakedown letter," one of the text messages reads.
"The horny kid jumped me," says another.
The unnamed friend in the messages encourages Argento to "find evidence you rejected this person sexually before".
In Bennett's account of the incident, as reported by the New York Times, he claims Argento gave him alcohol, handed him love letters and kissed him, then "pushed him back on the bed" and performed oral sex.
He released a statement to CNN in response to the article, explaining why he waited to speak out.
"I did not initially speak out about my story because I chose to handle it in private with the person who wronged me.
"My trauma resurfaced as she came out as a victim herself."
Argento and Bennett worked together on the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, which she also wrote and directed.
He was seven years old at the time and played Argento's son, a character who was sexually assaulted by her character's boyfriend.
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