Amber Tamblyn is speaking up. Following the claims that Asia Argento paid off an actor who accused her of sexual assault, Tamblyn is making sure her voice is heard as an active supporter of the Me Too movement.
After the Los Angeles Times sent out a Tweet that read, “Do the claims against Asia Argento invalidate the #MeToo movement?,” the 35-year-old Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star replied.
“Nah. You don’t get to destroy two decades worth of the work @TaranaBurke has done for the #metooMVMT because of this woman’s actions,” Tamblyn tweeted in response on Monday, August 20. “Don’t you even dare.”
Both Tamblyn and Argento have played pivotal roles in the movement against sexual harassment and assault. Argento, for her part, was one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault.
The New York Times detailed the pay-off allegation against Argento in a story published on Sunday, August 19. According to court documents obtained by the Times, lawyers for the 42-year-old Italian actress and her accuser, Jimmy Bennett, arranged to pay the former child actor $380,000 shortly after she made her accusations against Weinstein.
The newspaper reports that Bennett — who played Argento’s son in the 2004 movie The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things — accused Argento of sexually assaulting him in a hotel room at The Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, California, in May 2013. He was only 17 at the time, and the legal age of consent in the state is 18. Argento was 37.
The now 22-year-old musician claims that Argento gave him alcohol at the hotel, and then allegedly kissed him and performed oral sex on him. The two then engaged in sexual intercourse. Later that day, she posted a close-up photo with Bennett captioning it, “Happiest day of my life reunion with @jimmymbennett xox” AND ADDING, “jimmy is going to be in my next movie and that is a fact, dig that jack.”
Bennett’s lawyer claimed that the encounter was traumatizing, hindering Bennett’s ability to earn money. The Times also reports that in 2014 he filed a lawsuit against his mother and stepfather, accusing them of cheating him out of his earnings.
