Quentin Tarantino, who has faced a lot of heat for his role in Uma Thurman’s “Kill Bill” car accident, is under fire again for defending Roman Polanski over charges of raping a 13-year-old girl in an old interview that has resurfaced
Quentin Tarantino, who has faced a lot of heat for his role in Uma Thurman’s “Kill Bill” car accident, is under fire again for defending Roman Polanski over charges of raping a 13-year-old girl in an old interview that has resurfaced. In the 2003 interview with Howard Stern, Tarantino said Polanski’s 13-year-old rape victim “wanted to have it”. Polanski was arrested in 1977 for five offences following the alleged assault. He fled the US after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor. “He didn’t rape a 13-year-old,” Tarantino said in the interview when asked by Stern why Hollywood continued to embrace Polanski. “It was statutory rape. That’s not quite the same thing…
He had sex with a minor. That’s not rape. To me, when you use the word ‘rape’, you’re talking about violent, throwing them down; it’s like one of the most violent crimes in the world. Throwing the word ‘rape’ around is like throwing the word ‘racist’ around. It doesn’t apply to everything that people use it for. He was guilty of having sex with a minor.” “The Howard Stern Show” co-host Robin Quivers interrupted the director to point out that the sex was not consensual. “No, that was not the case at all. She wanted to have it and dated the guy,” he said in the interview posted by Jezebel. To which an angry Quivers exclaimed, “She was 13!” Stern also pushed back, saying, “Wait a minute. If you have sex with a 13-year-old girl and you’re a grown man, you know that that’s wrong.” Tarantino replied, “Look, she was down with this… She’s talked about it since, ‘No, he didn’t really do anything to me. It was a technicality for being 13.'” Shocked by the director’s comments, Stern asked, “Would you ever seduce a 13-year-old with pills and booze?” “No, no, no. Again, you’re killing him with the pills and booze thing,” Tarantino said.
When Quivers said Polanski could have avoided it by staying away from the minor, Tarantino said, “He likes girls.” “She was down to party with Roman,” he added. Ironically, Tarantino is all set to make a movie on the murder of Polanski’s wife, actor Sharon Tate by the members of the Charles Manson cult. The director, who had a close working relationship with Harvey Weinstein, recently admitted that he knew about the disgraced producer’s history as a serial offender. In a New York Times article, Thurman had said that she told Tarantino about Weinstein. She also revealed that Tarantino forced to do a car stunt which resulted in an accident on the sets of “Kill Bill”. The director has admitted his role in the accident calling it “the biggest regret of my life”.
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