The Hollywood sexual impropriety scandal has been ongoing for the last seven months now, and has effectively ended the movie careers of some pretty big names. As well as movie supremo Harvey Weinstein and Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, actors such as T.J. Miller and Ed Westwick will struggle to work again, and directors like Brett Ratner and John Lasseter look to have been permanently exiled from the industry. Well, it looks like you can now add director Luc Besson to the growing list.
French native Besson has been making movies in Hollywood for the last 30 years, and is famous from works such as Leon, The Fifth Element, Taken and Valerian. Whilst his movies have always generated headlines for their blatant disregard for following the regular filmmaking rules that Hollywood likes to follow, Besson himself has managed to stay comfortably out of the limelight. He’s been married four times (his third wife being Milla Jovovich), without a hint of scandal.
French police have confirmed that on Friday, a 27 year old French actress attends a police station in Paris, and made an allegation of rape against the 59 year old director. Whilst the date of the alleged offence has not been announced, the location has, with a spokesman confirming that the incident is reported to have taken place at Parisian hotel, Hôtel Le Bristol. Furthermore, the detail of the alleged rape includes the fact that the victim states she was drugged by Besson prior to the act taking place.
Besson himself has been quick to deny the matter, releasing a statement concerning the allegation via his lawyer, Thierry Marembert:
“Mr. Besson fell off his chair when he learned of these accusations, which he flatly denies.. The complainant is someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately…”
In a further further twist to the tale, one of Harvey Weinstein’s original accusers has now gone public, stating that she had already been aware of the allegation for some time. It was Italian actress Asia Argento (daughter of legendary film director Dario Argento) who first levelled accusations at Weinstein back in October, and at this weekend’s conclusion to the Cannes Film Festival, she commented on the allegation against Besson.
Argento had been in attendance at the festivals close by ceremony to present the Best Actress award, and used her moment to further condemn the actions of predators in the film industry. Alleging that numerous directors had historically used Cannes as their ‘hunting ground’, she described how sexual assaults had regularly taken place on the yachts and hotels of the resort. She then specifically stated that she had been aware of the allegation against Besson for the last ‘eight months’.
Argento’s comments and the lack of detail from the French police would seem to suggest this is a historic incident, rather than something more recent. The criminal investigation against Besson has now begun, and this incident demonstrates that the ongoing backlash against sexual misconduct in the movie industry is showing no signs of dying down, and still has a number of big names yet to be revealed.