Filmmaker says Jeremy Renner sent explicit photos, threatened to call ICE. He denies all
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- Filmmaker Yi Zhou made a series of misconduct allegations against actor Jeremy Renner this week.
- Zhou alleges Renner sent her unsolicited explicit photos, engaged in a nonconsensual encounter and threatened to call immigration officials on her.
- A representative for Renner called the allegations “inaccurate and untrue.”
Jeremy Renner, a star in the “Avengers” universe and the Paramount+ series “Mayor of Kingstown,” is facing allegations of misconduct from filmmaker Yi Zhou.
For the record:
8:03 a.m. Nov. 10, 2025A previous version of this article incorrectly stated “Mayor of Kingstown” is on HBO. It is on Paramount+.
In an extensive series of posts on Instagram last week Zhou alleges that beginning in June Renner sent “a string of unwanted / unsolicited pornographic images.” After a relationship over calls and text, according to Zhou, “The first physical encounter was not consensual. … Later interactions became consensual, yet the earlier incident remained deeply distressing.” Another post claims that Renner “threatened to call immigration/ICE on me,” which left her “shocked and frightened.”
A representative for Renner responded to a request for comment Sunday by saying, “The accusations being made by this individual are totally inaccurate and untrue.”
Many of Zhou’s Instagram posts, which include images of supposed messages between the two of them and what appear to be candid, personal photos of the actor, added the hashtag “#CancelJeremyRenner.”
Zhou, born in China and based in Los Angeles, has directed two films, the documentary “Masters of Cinema: Chronicles of Disney” and the animated “Stardust Future,” which she says Renner participated in and then refused to promote.
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People reported that Renner’s attorney, Marty Singer, sent Zhou a cease-and-desist letter to prevent further “salacious lies” on Friday. A message to Singer’s office Sunday was not immediately returned.
In one of her posts, Zhou wrote of her motivation for speaking out. “My intention is not retaliation but transparency,” she said. “I have the right to protect my professional reputation, to set boundaries, and to correct misinformation when selective reporting distorts the facts.” She posted a cease-and-desist letter she purportedly emailed to Renner on Instagram asking him to stop “any form of verbal abuse, yelling or intimidation.”
In a 2025 interview with the Guardian promoting his memoir “My Last Breath,” which chronicles the 2023 accident involving an industrial snowcat that nearly killed him, Renner denied previous allegations of misconduct — substance abuse and a verbal threat — that came out in a custody dispute with his ex-wife Sonni Pacheco over their daughter, Ava.
“Being accused of things you’ve not done, right? That doesn’t feel good to anybody,” Renner said. “It certainly doesn’t feel good when you’re a celebrity and it’s known to everybody.”
