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06th Feb 2018

Quentin Tarantino breaks his silence on Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill crash that left her ‘permanently damaged’

Paul Moore

The actress suffered a concussion and damaged knees.

During her recent interview with the New York Times, Uma Thurman revealed that she suffered severe injuries on the set of Kill Bill after she being pressured into driving a stunt car that she didn’t feel comfortable operating.

Since giving that interview, the Pulp Fiction actress shared footage of the crash on Instagram but refused to blame the director for the incident. Thurman added that she held the producers “Lawrence Bender, E. Bennett Walsh, and the notorious Harvey Weinstein solely responsible.”

The crash occurred in Mexico in 2002 and it left her suffering concussion and damaged knees.

Here’s her post in full along with footage of the incident:

i post this clip to memorialize it’s full exposure in the nyt by Maureen Dowd. the circumstances of this event were negligent to the point of criminality. i do not believe though with malicious intent. Quentin Tarantino, was deeply regretful and remains remorseful about this sorry event, and gave me the footage years later so i could expose it and let it see the light of day, regardless of it most likely being an event for which justice will never be possible. he also did so with full knowledge it could cause him personal harm, and i am proud of him for doing the right thing and for his courage. THE COVER UP after the fact is UNFORGIVABLE. for this i hold Lawrence Bender, E. Bennett Walsh, and the notorious Harvey Weinstein solely responsible. they lied, destroyed evidence, and continue to lie about the permanent harm they caused and then chose to suppress. the cover up did have malicious intent, and shame on these three for all eternity. CAA never sent anyone to Mexico. i hope they look after other clients more respectfully if they in fact want to do the job for which they take money with any decency.

A post shared by Uma Thurman (@ithurman) on

Again, Thurman clarified that Tarantino had given her the footage, saying that he was “deeply regretful and remains remorseful.”.

Since this Instagram post was published, Tarantino was speaking with Deadline and gave his side of the story. “Uma and I had talked about it, for a long period of time, deciding how she was going to do it. She wanted clarity on what happened in that car crash, after all these years,” he said.

Tarantino added the he “ended up taking the hit and taking the heat” when the New York Times article was published.

At the time, Thurman voiced concerns about the safety of the road. To allay her fears, the director personally drove down the road to test it out before informing her that it was safe.

“I came in there all happy telling her she could totally do it, it was a straight line, you will have no problem. Uma’s response was… ‘Okay.’ Because she believed me. Because she trusted me. I told her it would be okay. I told her the road was a straight line. I told her it would be safe. And it wasn’t. I was wrong. I didn’t force her into the car. She got into it because she trusted me. And she believed me,’ he said.

Tarantino added: “We did the shot. And she crashed. At first, no one really knew what happened. After the crash, when Uma went to the hospital, I was feeling in total anguish at what had happened.Watching her fight for the wheel… remembering me hammering about how it was safe and she could do it. Emphasising that it was a straight road, a straight road… the fact that she believe me, and I literally watched this little S curve pop up. And it spins her like a top. It was heartbreaking. Beyond one of the biggest regrets of my career, it is one of the biggest regrets of my life.”

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