A woman who claims actor Warren Beatty coerced her into sex with him almost 50 years ago when she was a young teenager has filed a lawsuit against him seeking damages.
The suit, lodged in Los Angeles, is the latest effort to claim compensation for abuses that are alleged to have happened decades ago, under a California law allowing complaints that would otherwise have passed the statute of limitations.
Kristina Charlotte Hirsch alleges in the suit that she met the “Bonnie and Clyde” actor on a movie set when she was 14 or 15 years old.
The suit, filed Monday, says he later invited her to the hotel in which he was living and took her for car rides.
It did not name the movie Beatty was filming at the time, but the successful social satire “Shampoo,” in which Beatty played a priapic hairstylist, was released in the mid-1970s.
Beatty — who would have been aged around 35 at the time — “used his position and status as an adult and a Hollywood movie star to coerce sexual contact with Plaintiff on multiple occasions, including oral sex, simulated sex and finally coerced sexual intercourse with the minor child,” the suit says.
Hirsch was “initially thrilled” by the situation and understood it to be a romantic relationship, the submission says.
Hirsch, who now lives in Louisiana, is seeking compensation for psychological, mental and emotional distress, in a suit that does not name Beatty, but refers to him as the actor who had been nominated for an Oscar for playing Clyde in “Bonnie and Clyde,” released in 1967.
Beatty’s legal representatives did not immediately return AFP requests for comment.
Beatty, now 85, has long had a reputation as a lothario whose romantic entanglements have at times overshadowed his acting career.
He has in the past been linked to names including Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Diane Keaton and Britt Ekland.
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Really?
It took 50 years to realize this? 50 years ago Warren Beatty could had ANY woman he wanted and I am sure he had dozens of 15-16 year old girls drooling at his feet
This is now getting ridiculous.
How does actor Warren Beatty defend himself against alleged events that occurred 50 years ago? Yes, Beatty was known to be a Hollywood playboy back in the day, but that is not the same as using coersion to manipulate a 15-year-old girl who was incapable of consenting to sexual contact. I hope the jury suspends judgement until it has heard both sides of the story and all of the facts in this case before arriving at a decision. This should not be decided in the media circus that is Los Angeles or the court of public opinion. A court of law must decide.