In 2006, Fergie Said Quentin Tarantino Bit Her on Set of Planet Terror [Updated]
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In companion footage for the horror double feature Grindhouse—comprised of the Quentin Tarantino-directed Death Proof and the Robert Rodriguez-directed Planet Terror—Fergie, who starred in Planet Terror, alleges that Tarantino bit her so hard it left a mark. The story, told in a special bonus feature for the DVD, gains new relevance following recent allegations that he has a history of mistreating women on set.
“As I was filming the scene where the zombies attack me, Quentin really got into it. I think he had a lot of fun with that,” Fergie says in the interview of the 2006 shoot. “He’s doing the whole run with me, so it’s great. So I look over and see Quentin, and I have to kind of visualize this zombie-esque character. And we kept having to re-do the scene because he was so into being this creature that he was making all these noises. And he was blaming it on the other guys, but really Quentin was making all the noise.”
“So I’m doing the scene, right,” she says in a different interview, also in the special feature. “And he starts biting me.” In the clip, Tarantino tackles her, and then we hear Fergie laugh and say, “Fucker, get off me.”
“It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like a bite, she wasn’t bleeding or anything,” Rodriguez says in his interview. “Certainly you felt some teeth on flesh. It happens, people get into the role.”
Later in the clip, she shows the camera the bite wound on her arm and says, “Quentin fucking bit me. And by the end of this shoot, I will bite him back.”
In a 2007 interview with Maxim promoting the film (via Celebitchy), Fergie describes the incident again: “In one scene, Quentin got really into the character and bit me. My manager has it on his camera. I’m not going to sue him or anything, but I wanted documentation. It was crazy cool.”
The Daily Beast reports that Rose McGowan, a Harvey Weinstein accuser and another star in Grindhouse, has also alleged misconduct by Tarantino:
[She] wrote in her new memoir Brave that, “The first time I met Tarantino, and for years after, every time he’d see me, he said, ‘Rose! I have your movie Jawbreaker on laser disc! I can’t tell you how many times I used the shot where you’re painting your toes!’” She continued, “That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and told me about it loudly, over and over, for years, in front of numerous people.”
Additionally, according to The Telegraph, “McGowan writes that for all the praise Tarantino receives for depicting strong female characters in his films, he also ‘beats the s—- out of them for his enjoyment.’”
McGowan has also recently alleged that Rodriguez used his knowledge of her experience with Weinstein “as a tool for mind games” on the set of Grindhouse, according to Vanity Fair:
McGowan fell hard and fast, trusting Rodriguez enough to tell him about her experience with Weinstein. He proceeded to use the knowledge against her, she claims, as a tool for mind games, starting with a scene in which Tarantino, playing a character in his movie, attacks McGowan’s character. “I was in a backward world,” she writes. “I was losing my grip on sanity.” In what McGowan interpreted as the ultimate act of cruelty, Rodriguez “sold our film to my monster.”
In a statement provied to the magazine, Rodriguez denied McGowan’s version of the story, but said that he agreed “with what Rose is trying to do overall, which is continue to push for change both in our industry and beyond.”