In an interview with Milan’s Il Corriere della Sera, Asia Argento accuses Rob Cohen, director of movies such as The Fast and the Furious, DragonHeart, and Alex Cross, of sexual assault. According to Variety, the actress alleges the assault took place during the production of Cohen’s 2002 Vin Diesel action movie xXx, which co-starred Argento and Samuel L. Jackson.
“It’s the first time I’m talking about Cohen,” Argento says in the interview. “He abused me, making me drink GHB, he had a bottle of it … At the time, I really didn’t know what it was. I woke up in the morning naked in his bed.” Argento also told Variety that she discusses the assault in her upcoming memoir, Anatomy of a Wild Heart, which will be published in Italy on January 26.
Cohen was previously accused of sexual assault in 2019; an anonymous accuser told the HuffPost the director allegedly raped her in 2015 when she was unconscious in a hotel room. Cohen has also been accused of sexual assault by his own daughter Valkyrie Weather; in addition to molestation as a child, Weather alleges the director took her to sex workers while underage. Cohen denied the accusations as “categorically untrue.”
The director also rejects Argento’s new allegation as “absolutely false.” A spokesperson for Cohen said in a statement, “Mr. Cohen categorically denies Asia Argento’s accusation of assault against him as absolutely false. When they worked together, they had an excellent working relationship and Mr. Cohen considered her a friend, so this claim dating back to 2002 is bewildering, especially given what has been reported about her in recent years.”
In 2018, Argento, amid her work with the Me Too movement, was accused of sexual assault by actor Jimmy Bennett over an incident that occurred when Bennett was 17 in 2013. According to a New York Times report, Argento allegedly agreed to pay $380,000 to Bennett, a settlement encouraged and paid by Argento’s then-boyfriend, the late Anthony Bourdain.
