Originally Posted by
Comic-Reader Lad
Like you said, it doesn't excuse anything because maybe Harvey Weinstein was also abused when he was younger.
Here's more info about the Argento/Bennett case from wiki and latimes.com.
LATIMES.COM:
On the day of the alleged assault [May 9, 2013], Argento and Bennett met for a reunion at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey. The pair have referred to each other as mother and son on social media. Argento posted a photo on that day showing her hugging Bennett, referring to him as “My son my love,” and included the month and year.
According to the New York Times, Bennett arrived at the hotel with a family member. Argento asked the family member to leave. When they were alone, she allegedly kissed the 17-year-old, removed his pants and performed oral sex, and then had sex with him, the newspaper reported.
Argento became a prominent voice in the #MeToo movement after telling the New Yorker that Weinstein raped her in 1997 when she was 21.
from wiki:
According to documents obtained by The New York Times, a $380,000 settlement was made between Bennett and Asia Argento after Bennett claimed that Argento sexually assaulted him in 2013. Bennett said that after the encounter he began to feel "extremely confused, mortified, and disgusted". Bennett's lawyer wrote that in the years after the incident, Bennett was so traumatized that his job performance, income, and mental health declined. They first met when Bennett played Argento's son in the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things when Bennett was 7-years old.
By the way, if Argento did become a victimizer because of the Weinstein incident, then that's pretty troubling as it happened 20 years ago. Could this mean that there are other #metoos in Argento's past? Otherwise, you have to believe she just randomly picked on Bennett in 2013 16 years after the Weinstein incident with nothing happening before or since.
Also, it's extra creepy that she had sex with Bennett at 17 given that she knew him since he was 7 when they met on their movie -- The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (the title now laden with subtext). The writeup for the movie itself shows it to be pretty much a freakshow involving a drug-addeled mother (Argento) and her son (Bennett) that gets raped by her boyfriend. Years later, the son (now played by the Sprouse twins) is forced by the mother to crossdress to pretend he's her sister rather than her son so the mother can score with men. More rape of the son follows. All this junk is based on a series of books that have their own controversial backstory.
Someone should interview Cole Sprouse, now on Riverdale as Jughead, as to his dealings with Ms. Argento.