Stars of 1968’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ sue Paramount over underage nude scene

Every high school English teacher’s favorite movie is at the center of a $500+ million California sexual abuse lawsuit. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting sued Paramount last week, accusing the studio of sexually exploiting them while filming the 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet.

The claims: Hussey was 15 when she played Juliet and Whiting was 16 when he played Romeo. The pair allege that they were coerced into filming a nude bedroom scene by the film’s now-deceased director, Franco Zeffirelli, who initially promised that the two would wear flesh-colored undergarments for the scene.

He also allegedly told the actors that the cameras wouldn’t actually capture any nudity for the final film, which as you might remember from class…is not the case.

Why now? The underage nudity in the film caused pushback when it was first released over five decades ago. But the new lawsuit was brought because of a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitation on cases involving child sex abuse—meaning that from 2020 to 2022, survivors could bring claims from decades ago. And it’s not the only lawsuit dredging up old allegations: Several states including Arkansas, New Jersey, and New York have passed “revival statute” laws.