Asia Argento Details Alleged Assault By Jimmy Bennett; Asks X Factor Italy to Rehire Her
Last weekend, actor and musician Jimmy Bennett gave his first TV interview about the sexual assault ..
Last weekend, actor and musician Jimmy Bennett gave his first TV interview about the sexual assault allegations he made against Asia Argento on Italian talk show Non è lArena (Outside the Arena). And on Sunday evening, Argento had the opportunity to respond to Bennetts claims on the same program, hosted by journalist Massimo Giletti.
Speaking solemnly in front of a live audience, Argento said she watched Bennetts appearance on the program, and listened to his claims about their 2013 sexual encounter, which took place in a California hotel room when she was 37 and he was 17. “It made me angry,” Argento said of Bennetts description of events, according to a translation from The Hollywood Reporter. “But it made me especially sorry, because his eyes were glassy and there was no expression on his face. I saw him as a child who then failed to pursue his career, a lost soul.”
Argento had played Bennetts mother in 2004s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Since that collaboration, Argento said that Bennetts acting career had stalled and she felt bad for him. She claimed pity was part of the reason she agreed to meet with Bennett in 2013 to run lines for a script “like in the old days.” But when Bennett arrived at the hotel, Argento claimed he was without a script or a chaperone.
“I told him, O.K., Jimmy, maybe we can do a movie together, I can find a part for you,” she continued. “He lit up and we hugged at that moment. Then he began to kiss me and touch me in a way that was not that of a child with his mother, but that of a boy with crazy hormones.”
“Seeing this boy who had always been like a child behave like this with me completely froze me,” she said. “He literally jumped on me; he put me sideways across the bed. He did what he had to do. He didnt use a condom. It lasted for two minutes. He had an orgasm. I was cold, unable to move. Shocked, I asked him afterwards why he had done this, and he told me that I had been his sexual fantasy since he was 12 years old.”
Argento also presented on the show text messages with her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain. The messages, she claimed, comprised conversations about the $380,000 settlement she agreed to give Bennett that was partially paid by Bourdain. Asked about Bourdains suicide, Argento claimed that she is haunted by “a sense of guilt for not having seen his pain. He had never shown it to me,” she said. “It was Bourdain who protected me. I was the depressed one. He told me that we would be happy. He gave me the best two years of my life, and nobody can take them away from me.”
Argento also used her time on the program to ask to be reinstated on X Factor Italy as a judge. “My children are proud of me,” she claimed, before referencing petitions in Italy supporting her return to the competition series. “Italy wants me and I have not done anything that Im accused of.” Appealing to Sky Italias C.E.O. Andrea Zappia, Argento said it was an “absolute mistake” to fire her.
During Bennetts interview, conducted via an English translator last week, the actor and musician said that he initially believed Argentos kisses were her way of “showing her affection.” Speaking in front of a live audience in Italy, Bennett faltered several times during the interview, saying at one point, “Its hard for me to talk about this in front of strangers.” At another point in the segment, he noted that he did not feel comfortable speaking while photos of Argento were displayed onstage: “Its kind of hard to focus, Im not going to lie.”
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Julie MillerJulie Miller is a Senior Hollywood writer for Vanity Fairs website.
