Recommendations of the Editorial team
A lawyer for Jeremy Renner has denied filmmaker Yi Zhou’s allegations against the actor. Zhou claims Renner sent her “intimate, unwanted” photos and videos. And she later threatened to involve the immigration authorities ICE. Both sides announced on Saturday that they had served each other with cease-and-desist letters.
In recent days, Zhou had made serious allegations against the Hawkeye star in several Instagram posts and an interview with the Daily Mail. She claimed Renner harassed her after she “privately confronted him about misconduct.” Zhou, director of the documentary “Chronicles of Disney” in which Renner appears, said her personal and professional relationship with him left her frightened.
“Mr. Renner first contacted me directly in June and sent me personal, intimate photos of himself, behavior he has reportedly exhibited before,” Zhou wrote on Instagram. She claimed Renner had been courting her and wanted a relationship. Soon after, they started working together. Among other things, ‘Chronicles of Disney’, in which Renner “can be seen in 80 percent of the film”.
Both sides blame each other
When the documentary was released in October, Renner “refused any public promotion,” even though written agreements existed, according to Zhou. She asked him to help her take action against false claims that the documentary was created using AI without his consent. But he refused.
“When I privately confronted him about past misconduct and asked him to respect me as a woman and a filmmaker, he threatened to call ICE,” Zhou wrote. “Conduct that was shocking and frightening. And an example of the power imbalance that continues to harm women in our industry.” A spokesman for Renner previously told Rolling Stone that the allegations were “completely inaccurate and untrue.”
In a statement to People, Renner’s attorney Marty Singer called Zhou’s claims “false, outrageous and highly defamatory.” They are a reaction to Renner “rejecting her romantic advances” and not promoting their joint projects on social media. Singer admitted that there was a “brief consensual encounter” between the two in July 2025. However, he claimed that Zhou then bombarded Renner with “sexually explicit love messages for months.” Most recently on October 24th.
Mutual cease and desist declarations
Regarding the ICE threat, Singer said Zhou “harassed and threatened his client for months with hundreds of unsolicited messages.” The truth is that Zhou “aggressively pursued” Renner while he “showed no reciprocal interest.” Apart from a brief meeting on July 12th.
Zhou referred to her previous Instagram posts to ROLLING STONE. According to TMZ, Renner sent a cease-and-desist letter to Zhou on Saturday. A few hours later, she responded on social media and published her own statement, which she had already sent to Renner on November 5th.
“I am sharing my official cease and desist letters to Jeremy Renner and his representatives,” Zhou wrote. “These letters were sent after I began receiving unwanted sexual content, misinformation about my work, and ICE threats over the course of several months. They show that it involved repeated sexual content, fan slander, and threats. Not that he had not reciprocated a relationship that had existed since June.”