Hollywood star Warren Beatty has been accused of sexually abusing a child in a new lawsuit against the 85-year-old actor.
According to court documents filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, Beatty is being sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor in 1973 when she was 14 and the actor was 35 years old.
While Beatty is not specifically named, the lawsuit describes the defendant as “portraying Clyde in ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ a major box-office success that earned defendant doe an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor,” The Daily Mail reports.
As the Hollywood Reporter notes, Beatty, who portrayed Clyde in “Bonnie and Clyde,” was nominated in 1967 for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his part in the film.
Court documents obtained by the outlet show the woman, Kristina Hirsch, 63, is accusing Beatty of allegedly grooming and raping her when she was a child.
The lawsuit alleges that Beatty reportedly paid “undue attention” to the then-minor when she met him on the set of his movie.
She says her neighbor, who worked at the studio, brought her to the set of Beatty’s movie.
“Plaintiff was initially thrilled that defendant doe was interested in her, and believed she was involved in a romantic relationship with a movie star,” the suit read, the Daily Mail reported.
“He used his role, status, and power as a well-known Hollywood Star to gain access to, groom, manipulate, exploit, and coerce sexual contact from her over the course of several months in the State of California,” the report adds.
The woman has accused Beatty of allegedly giving her his number and “instructing her to call him when she was close to his hotel,” where he was living at the time.
Hirsch alleged that he showered her with compliments and allegedly “used his position and status as an adult, and a Hollywood movie star to coerce” the teen into having sex with him in 1973 when she was both 14 and 15 years old.
The lawsuit alleged that Beatty reportedly forced Hirsch into having a variety of sex with him on numerous occasions.
Hirsch claimed in the court documents that because of the alleged abuse, she “suffered severe emotional, physical, and psychological distress, including humiliation, shame, and guilt.”
“Plaintiff has suffered personal physical injury of sexual assault, and has and will continue to suffer, psychological, mental and emotional distress, and all associated economic injury,” it added.
The woman is now seeking damages, special damages, and punitive damages, the outlet noted.
Beatty has been married to actress Annette Bening since the two tied the knot in 1992.
The couple has four children together.
