A Chinese filmmaker has accused Jeremy Renner of threatening to call ICE on her.
Thirty-four-year-old filmmaker Yi Zhou detailed the allegations in a series of Instagram posts. In them, Zhou, who made a documentary and an animated movie with Renner, claimed that he contacted her on WhatsApp in June and sent her “a string of unwanted/unsolicited pornographic images of himself.”
In one of her posts about Renner, Zhou explained why she got involved with him in the first place.
“He convinced me of his sincerity, saying he had been single for a long time and open to a long-term relationship,” she wrote. “I believed in him, in the power of love and in the possibility of redemption.”
According to Zhou, the two formed a romantic relationship and partnered to work on two projects — but things allegedly took a turn during a meeting about their documentary at Renner’s home.
“I was discussing about the documentary logistics, then he drank a bottle of wine alone and got angry and yelled for two hours," Zhou claimed to the Daily Mail. “I had to share location with my team, my parents and Disney colleagues in case something happens to me they know where I am,” she explained. “I had to lock myself in a room to be safe praying he would not come into the room at night as he was really angry. I did not say a word, I was so scared for my life.”
In an Instagram post about the situation, Zhou claimed that Renner threatened to call ICE after she confronted him about how he was behaving.
“When I called him out privately about his past misconduct and asked him to behave properly, to respect me as a woman and as a filmmaker, he threatened to call immigration/ICE on me, an act that deeply shocked and frightened me,” she wrote.
Zhou shared some of the messages that she claimed were between her and Renner. In one of them, Renner appears to send a video of a male porn actor and female porn actress in the midst of a sexual act — with the movie star’s message to her being, “Oh, yes ? 🤤 This ok ???”
In another one of the shared messages, Zho appears to tell Renner, “Go to hell … U r a pig … U use all apps to send d–k pix” — prompting him to allegedly respond with, “Immigration will be notified of your –” before the message was cut off.
On her personal Instagram profile, Zhou has shared several posts in addition to her original allegations. In one of them, she references alleged sex parties at Renner’s house and the “dark side of Hollywood.”
Renner has yet to publicly address this situation.
The actor was previously married to Sonni Pacheco, who accused him of substance abuse, threatening to kill her, and firing a gun while their daughter was present in 2019.
In 2021, Renner responded to his ex-wife's claims during an interview with Men's Health, saying that they weren't true.
"I don't respond publicly or privately to nonsense," said Renner. "It only empowers it. If you respond to it, you give it gas. I don't fuel shit fires. I just don't do it. I refuse to."