MeToo Leader A Paid Actress

Argento was one of the first and most vocal accusers of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Asia Argento, the Italian actress who was one of the first to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, secretly paid off a young male actor accusing her of sexual misconduct in the months after her revelations about the disgraced movie mogul. 

According to a report in The New York Times, Argento paid former child actor Jimmy Bennett $380,000. Bennett claims that in 2013, a then 37-year-old Argento assaulted him in a California hotel only two months past his 17th birthday. The age of consent in California is 18. 

The Times reports that it has seen the legal documents that lay out Bennett's assault claims and the payments arranged between his lawyers and Argento's.

Bennett's lawyers sent a notice of intent to sue Argento in November, claiming that the sexual assault was so traumatic that it affected his mental health and stymied his acting career. The notice was sent to Richard Hofstetter, the late Anthony Bourdain's longtime lawyer, who was representing Argento at the time.