Scarlett Johansson has denied an old rumour that she once had sex in a lift with Benicio del Toro.
The rumour – that the pair were intimate in the lift at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles in 2004 – seemingly originated from a 2005 interview del Toro gave.
“Did I ever have sex in an elevator with Scarlett Johansson after an awards show?” Benicio said in an interview with Esquire, repeating back the question he had been asked.
“I kind of like, you know, I, well. I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s leave that to somebody’s imagination. Let’s not promote it. I’m sure it has happened before. It might not be the last time either.”
Now, Johansson has said in a new podcast interview: “When I was younger it was more acceptable to write really nasty, slutty things about young actresses. That was a story that followed me for a long time.”
She told TheSkimm’s 9 to 5ish podcast: “But I always thought that was outrageous. I was always thinking to myself, ‘That would be tough. It’s a very short period, the logistics of that seem so unappealing to me.’
“I’m a person who’s terrified of being caught doing something I’m not supposed to be doing. So that made the story even that much more absurd to me.”
In 2018, years after the rumour was spread, Johansson and del Toro starred together in Avengers: Infinity War.
Johansson’s forthcoming film projects include Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and the sci-fi drama Bride.
Del Toro, meanwhile, will star alongside Alicia Silverstone in the detective thriller Reptile.
