Asia Argento said Tuesday night
she would be leaving Italy, where the "air is a bit heavy for me
and my family" after accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape.
"I need to breathe a little," the actor and director told the
TV show Cartabianca.
"For the moment I'm in Berlin, then I'll come back to Italy,
but only on holiday".
Argento has been criticised for not speaking up before about
the alleged rape by Weinstein in France in 1997, when she was
21.
Argento on Monday stressed she had not named a director who
allegedly took out his penis in his trailer when she was 16.
Argento, 42, therefore said that people who had put a name to
him would have to face the consequences.
In her Twitter post Sunday, tagged #quellavoltache
(#thetimewhen) - like the #Metoo one - she stressed that "I did
not in any way name the author of the gesture nor did I give any
elements to identify him".
She went on: "therefore anyone who pretends to know him,
writing here or elsewhere his presumed name, wholly and
personally takes responsibility for that".
The actress and director made her new charge by joining the
chain of solidarity #quellavoltache.
Argento, in another post in which she did not name names,
said "this is the moment to speak out, not to minimize things".
Last Thursday Italia film producer Fabrizio Lombardo,
former head of Miramax Italia, denied Argento's account of her
alleged 1997 rape by Weinstein and said he was ready to sue
Argento and anyone publishing "false and above all unverified
news and statements".
In a New Yorker report out last Tuesday, Argento accused
Hollywood producer Weinstein, fallen from grace amid a swirl of
harassment and sex-attack reports he denies, of raping her at a
Miramax party in France in 1997, when she was 21.
Contacted over the phone by ANSA, Argento said: "It's all
true, everything the New Yorker wrote. Now leave me in peace".
Argento was among three women who told the New Yorker
Weinstein raped them.
Lucia Evans, a former aspiring actor, and one unnamed women
also accused Weinstein of forcing them to engage in sex or sex
acts, in the piece authored by Ronan Farrow.
The son of actress Mia Farrow, Ronan Farrow previously helped
reignite his sister Dylan's accusations that their father, Woody
Allen, groomed and sexually assaulted her as a child, an
allegation Allen denies.
Four other women told the magazine that Weinstein touched
them without their consent in a way "that could be classified as
an assault".
Others including actors Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette
alleged sexual harassment on the part of the Hollywood mogul.
Farrow also revealed audio from 2015 New York Police
Department sting operation in which Weinstein allegedly admits
to groping Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, a model who reported his
behavior, and said he was "used to" behaving that way.
Weinstein, 65, was sacked by his Weinstein Company earlier
this week after the New York Times reported a history of alleged
sexual harassment over the decades.
Nearly a dozen women told the NYT he had molested them.
On Tuesday Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow told the NYT
Weinstein molested them when they were young actresses.
George Clooney on Tuesday called his alleged behaviour
"indefensible".
Weinstein's fashion-designer wife Georgina Chapman said she
was leaving him.
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