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Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida says that she too was sexually molested
Gina Lollobrigida, the Italian film star once dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world, says that she was sexually molested twice during her career.
The former actress, now aged 90, told an Italian television programme that the first incident occurred when she was just 19.
"I've also suffered molestation, in fact more than that, and I didn't say anything about it at the time," she told the programme on Wednesday night. "I should have complained but I didn't have the courage."
She made the revelation after being asked what she thought about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which has led to a flood of actresses around the world alleging that they suffered sexual abuse, harassment and even rape.
"The first time I was 19, I was still going to school. The second time, well I'd rather not talk about it. I was married and I was starting out in films."
She declined to identify the men who molested her but said one was Italian and the other foreign.
Ms Lollobrigida, who has a home in Rome, was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1950s and 1960s.
Known in Italy as “La Lollo” and one of the leading sex symbols of her day, she starred in romantic comedies and big-screen epics opposite Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.
She was often compared with two other sultry Italian actresses of the era – Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale. She made her first Hollywood film, Beat the Devil, with Humphrey Bogart in 1953 and starred in Solomon and Sheba with Yul Brynner.
She appeared with Anthony Quinn in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. After retiring from acting she established a career as a sculptor and photographer and became involved in humanitarian causes, acting as a special representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund.