Uma Thurman Reveals Quentin Tarantino Choked Her, Spit In Her Face While Filming ‘Kill Bill’

When Uma Thurman gave a measured, chilling response to a reporter back in October regarding the women who had spoken out about their abuse at the hands of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, many of us waited for the story she said she’d share when she was “ready.” On Saturday, an account written by Maureen Dowd for The New York Times revealed that Thurman had been allegedly sexually assaulted and harassed by Weinstein on multiple occasions, and the details were unsurprisingly harrowing. In addition to Weinstein, Thurman also divulged damning details about another powerful Hollywood man, one she has long boasted a close relationship with: Quentin Tarantino.

Thurman and Tarantino first began their creative collaboration with 1994’s Pulp Fiction, and by the time they were making the Kill Bill films together, Tarantino had dubbed Thurman his “muse”. The thrilling tale of female revenge earned Thurman a second Oscar nomination and cemented her as an action star, and the duo appeared to be an unstoppable force. Raw footage and revelations from behind the scenes, however, tell a different story. Thurman claims that her stormy standing with Weinstein evidently put a strain on her relationship with Tarantino, and this manifested itself in a physically violent manner. With just four days left of the nine-plus month shoot, Thurman was set to shoot the notorious sequence behind the wheel of a blue convertible that sees The Bride perform a scathing monologue about the man who ruined her life. When a teamster on-set warned Thurman that the car may not be safe to drive, the actress says she expressed concerns about driving the car and requested that a stunt person do it instead, but Thurman claims Tarantino wouldn’t have it:

“Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” Thurman recounted. “He was furious because I’d cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine. It’s a straight piece of road…. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won’t blow the right way and I’ll make you do it again.’ But that was a deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”

As she feared, Thurman lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a palm tree, leading to a concussion, permanent neck damage, and “screwed-up knees.” “Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me,” said Thurman. “And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didn’t feel he had tried to kill me.” For fifteen years, Thurman fought to get footage of the crash, and it finally ran in the Times.

It’s difficult and enraging to watch as Thurman, seemingly paralyzed, waits for some kind of rescue, trapped in the wreckage. She refers to the incident as “dehumanization to the point of death,” and the mere fact that it took so long for Tarantino to hand over the footage is incredibly damning – but it also isn’t all that surprising. Nor are the revelations that he stepped in for Budd (Michael Madsen) to spit in Thurman’s face and for teenager Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) to choke Thurman with a chain. When Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is strangled to death in Inglourious Basterds, it’s Tarantino’s hands we see clamped around her neck. He’s been showing us who he is for years. We were just conned into believing that it was all for the cameras.

When the heinous crimes of longtime collaborator Harvey Weinstein came to light, Tarantino admitted that he “knew enough to do more” than he did. “I’m calling on the other guys who knew more to not be scared,” he said. “Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters.” Perhaps he had the best intentions when he discussed his feelings about Weinstein and his own inaction with the Times, but the omission of his own transgressions against women in this conversation does not sit well. Tarantino’s present shame does not excuse his past abuses.

The director has long been a figure of controversy; whether for his racist language, excessive (and often sexist) violence, fondness of feet, or treatment of women, he’s never been one to shy away from an uncomfortable conversation. We’ve given him pass after pass after pass —myself, a young woman, included— because the innovation and so-called genius of his work seemed to outweigh any misgivings we might have about it. In the Quentin Tarantino canon, violence against women is almost always committed by men. Even in stories that boast themes of female empowerment, his women are victims of abuse who are made stronger by the very fact that they’ve been brutalized. Women have always acted as Tarantino’s playthings, here for him to toss around at his leisure and tout as powerful when it suits his narrative – and that’s exactly what Uma Thurman was subjected to. We’ve watched the aforementioned Kruger be strangled, Kerry Washington have the living hell beat out of her, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s teeth get knocked out. The women in Tarantino’s worlds have their humanity shelved in favor of artistic endeavors, and this very habit is indicative of a much larger problem, one that Tarantino is certainly not the only director guilty of.

Is getting the perfect shot worth more than a performer’s life? Perhaps now, his answer might be different, but when it came to filming Kill Bill, Tarantino evidently chose the work over the woman. What’s been done to Uma Thurman is unimaginable – but she is far from the only one. Her allegations against Harvey Weinstein tell one story, but her disturbing recollections of working with Tarantino are seemingly endemic to the Hollywood experience and just how far we are willing to allow the Tarantinos of the world to go in pursuit of genius.