In the latest instance of harrowing #MeToo stories in the industry, a woman has accused Rob Cohen — best known as the director of The Fast and the Furious and xXx — of sexual assault. Per HuffPost, the anonymous woman claims the director assaulted her in a hotel room after a business meeting in New York, where the duo discussed ideas for an in-development television project. At some point during this 2015 meeting, the woman alleges, she lost consciousness after being cajoled into drinking alcohol by Cohen, and woke up naked in his hotel room, where Cohen was sexually assaulting her. When she began to regain consciousness, she jolted out of bed, threw up in the bathroom, and returned to the bed while still “fuzzy†in the head, where Cohen attempted to assault her again. She eventually managed to leave later in the evening.
About two years after the incident, the woman, triggered by the numerous Harvey Weinstein accusations, decided to text Cohen and confront him about that evening. “The night we met, you really hurt me and fucked me up,†she wrote, to which Cohen responded, “So sorry to hear this.†Cohen called her the next day, and allegedly apologized for “causing her pain.â€
HuffPost confirmed through medical records that the woman immediately sought treatment for sexual assault after her incident with Cohen, and that she confided in two people about the alleged assault. A lawyer for Cohen likened the women’s claims to “an outrageous defamatory hit piece,†which is “vehemently disputed and denied by my client.â€