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‘Romeo & Juliet’ $100M Sex Abuse Suit Is “Gross Mischaracterization” & Will Be Dismissed, Judge Says

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“Thus with a kiss I die,” wrote William Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet, and thus echoed a Los Angeles judge today over the alleged sexual abuse and negligence lawsuit from the stars of Franco Zeffirelli Oscar-nominated 1968 adaptation of the doomed lovers play.

Stating that the $100 million in damages action against Paramount Pictures from Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting contains a “gross mischaracterization” of the bedroom scenes in question from the film and citing the First Amendment, Judge Alison Mackenzie put forth a tentative ruling to dismiss the case. “Defendant’s special motion to strike Plaintiffs’ entire Complaint …is GRANTED as each cause of action asserted therein arises from protected activity and Plaintiffs have failed to show a probability of success on the merits of those claims,” she wrote Thursday of Paramount’s (successful) attempt to have the matter tossed under California’s anti-SLAPP laws.

Simultaneously, making short work of the notion that the scenes from the Best Picture nominee are child pornography, as the late December 2022-filed claim insisted, the judge added in strict terms: Here, Defendant has not conceded that any of its conduct was illegal, nor have Plaintiffs conclusively demonstrated the alleged conduct is illegal as a matter of law.

Indeed, Plaintiffs themselves recognize that depictions of naked minors will only constitute illegal child pornography if they are “sufficiently sexually suggestive.” Plaintiffs have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.

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