Getty Asia Argento at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Actor, writer, director and activist Asia Argento, one of the women who has accused alleged serial sexual predator Harvey Weinstein of rape, furiously tweeted Friday that he’s still victimizing she and others after he was quoted as saying he traded sex for acting roles.
“I understand now who is behind the horrifying trolling and bullying directed against me and @rosemcgowan. Weinstein, you fucking monster rapist, still trying to damage and hurt us. Not for long. You’ll go to jail.”
Argento was reacting to statements made by accused rapist film and television mogul Harvey Weinstein that he traded sex for film roles and never raped anyone.
Now out on $1 million bail after pleading not guilty in a Manhattan court to multiple counts of rape and facing accusations and investigations in the UK and Los Angeles, Weinstein offered Spectator USA columnist Taki Theodoracopulos an “exclusive.”
Headlined ‘I offered acting jobs in exchange for sex, but so does everyone – they still do,’ the column reads the “disgraced movie producer” gave a “world exclusive,” about Rose McGowan and Asia Argento.
“This time he called me directly, there was no ‘Harvey Weinstein wishes to speak to you, please wait on the line’ stuff. The old growly voice was the same and he went straight to the point: ‘I’ve got a world exclusive for you, are you interested?’”
Taki said there was no intermediary, no waiting, just Weinstein and his lawyer Ben Brafman. The meeting was a set-up for Weinstein to bring up photos of Argento and reporter Hugo Clement in the days before the suicide of her boyfriend Anthony Bourdain and discuss “his take” on McGowan’s statement that Argento and Bourdain had an open relationship. Bourdain hanged himself with a hotel bathrobe belt in France last month. The ‘Parts Unknown’ personality was 61.
“It was obviously not true, says Harvey, but dead men tell no tales, so the girls made it up,” Taki wrote. “Harvey made a sketch of the twisted story for me and I couldn’t help feel sorry for him.”
But it is this exchange that Brafman said wasn’t said and now Taki says he may have misquoted Weinstein. This is what he quoted Weinstein as saying: “You were born rich and privileged and you were handsome. I was born poor, ugly, Jewish and had to fight all my life to get somewhere. You got lotsa girls, no girl looked at me until I made it big in Hollywood. Yes, I did offer them acting jobs in exchange for sex, but so did and still does everyone. But I never, ever forced myself on a single woman.”
Deadline Hollywood reported on the column. And then Brafman and Taki walked back.
Brafman said, “Harvey and Taki did not discuss the case, nor would I allow him to. We talked about old Hollywood and the contrast to European culture, and I think Taki sees Harvey in that older light. Mr. Weinstein never said anything about trading movie roles for sexual favors. You have my word that Harvey did not say that.”
Taki was quoted in Deadline: “After 41 years as a Spectator columnist without a single retraction, I believe that I may have misrepresented Harvey Weinstein’s conversation with me in New York last month …it was my mistake. We were discussing Hollywood and I may have misunderstood certain things about the methods of that place. I had nothing to do with the headline of my article and I hope I have not damaged his case,” he said calling the meeting a “social visit.”
McGowan tweeted Friday morning that Weinstein’s statement in the column was a “clear lie.”
“Being that I was in the middle of my second film for his company, having NEVER met him before the morning of my rape, and never worked for him again, this is a clear lie. Nice try, rapist.”