It was only a matter of time before actress-director Asia Argento came out with her first official statement regarding yesterday’s revelation that she allegedly sexually assaulted a young actor. And instead of what many believed would be an apology, Argento released a statement doing the exact opposite. According to the actress, the entire situation is a fabrication.
“I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article…” Argento says in a statement sent to the writer of the aforementioned NYT piece.
From there, Argento continues by saying that the young boy in question, Jimmy Bennett, came to her to extort money for an act that never took place after he realized that the actress was involved romantically with Anthony Bourdain. She says that Bennett believed that Bourdain had immense wealth and would pay him off to disappear. Basically, Argento says that the deal was all Bourdain’s idea.
“[Anthony] insisted that the matter be handled privately and this was also what Bennett wanted. Anthony was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us,” the statement reads. “We decided to deal compassionately with Bennett’s demand for help and give it to him.”
She continues, “Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.”
Of course, Bourdain can’t be expected to come forward with any response, as he sadly took his own life earlier this summer.
Argento ends her statement with the same defiance that she began it with, saying, “This is, therefore, the umpteenth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution.”
While there is no ambiguity with her statement, there are still questions that Argento failed to answer. The NYT piece claims that the outlet has copies of pictures showing both Bennett and the actress in bed. Plus, they claim to have confirmed from multiple sources that the documents possessed are real, including the quotes from Argento’s lawyer confirming the incident took place. None of these issues are addressed in the statement.
I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) August 21, 2018