Asia Argento claims ‘Fast and the Furious’ director Rob Cohen sexually abused and drugged her

Italian filmmaker and actress Asia Argento has accused the director of “The Fast and the Furious” and “xXx”, Rob Cohen, of sexual assault. Argento confirmed the allegations to Variety, which she made in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera and other media in Italy over the weekend.

“This is the first time I’ve spoken about Cohen,” she said. “He abused me and gave me GHB to drink, he had a bottle of it.” GHB is a tranquilizer used in date rape incidents. “At the time, I really didn’t know what it was. I woke up naked in his bed in the morning,” said Argento. According to the star, the incident occurred in 2002 during the filming of “xXx” alongside Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson.

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“I confirm what Corriere reported,” Argento said in a text message to Variety. “I talk about it in my autobiography.” Her upcoming memoir is titled “Anatomy of a Wild Heart” and is due out in Italy next week on January 26.

In the talk show “Verissimo”, in which she promoted her book on Saturday, Argento explained that there were reasons why she did not come forward with the allegations earlier. It was only later that she understood what had happened to her.

“I found out later when I talked to a friend who opened my eyes to this substance (GHB),” she said.

The director added that she felt compelled to speak out due to other allegations of sexual harassment against Cohen.

Cohen, whose 32-year-old transgender daughter Valkyrie Weather said in 2019 that the director sexually harassed her when she was 2, allegedly attacked an actress after they met in New York to discuss a pilot that never materialized. The alleged victim, identified in a Huffington Post report under the alias “Jane,” described a similar scenario of being administered drugs after a business meeting. “The next thing she remembers is waking up naked… She remembers Cohen’s face in her crotch and his fingers inside her. She had not consented to this.” According to the article, she vomited in the bathroom and then went back to bed, where Cohen attempted to initiate sexual intercourse but stopped when she asked him not to. Cohen’s representatives denied the allegations.

While Argento became a figurehead of the #MeToo movement with allegations against Harvey Weinstein in Ronan Farrow’s 2017 New Yorker article, she herself was accused of sexual assault by actor Jimmy Bennett, her co-star in the film “The Heart Is Deceitful More Than Anything.” Argento’s lawyer admitted to a sexual encounter but denied assault.

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