Uma Thurman shares grisly footage of her Kill Bill car accident

Days after Uma Thurman went public with her allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein in the New York Times, the actress has posted a video of her car accident on the set of Kill Bill: Vol. I [2003] which she also spoke of in the interview to “memorialize its full exposure,” according to her Instagram.

The Weinstein-produced, Quentin Tarantino-directed thriller about an assassin on a revenge quest against her attempted murderer, and a hit list of people responsible for the death of her unborn child, was a huge moment for Thurman’s career. But also, as she revealed, for her mental and physical health.

During the now-famous blue convertible scene, Thurman was asked to drive the car herself, instead of using a stunt double. She expressed her discomfort with doing so, having heard from someone on set that the car was reconfigured and might be unsafe.

“Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” Thurman told the Times in her explanation of the incident.

“He was furious because I’d cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine. It’s a straight piece of road,’” she continued. “But that was a deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”

As Thurman attempted to go through with the scene, the car veered out of control, slamming her into a tree—the whole thing was caught on video thanks to a camera mounted to the back of the convertible.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Be0x6OCFRwQ/?taken-by=ithurman

“I felt this searing pain and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to walk again,’” she told the Times. “When I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset.”

Miramax—Weinstein’s distribution company that was eventually sold to Disney—subsequently refused to show Thurman the video footage unless she signed papers releasing them from any consequences of her future pain and suffering, she explained to the Times. Over a decade later, as Weinstein’s reckoning began to unfold, Thurman sought police assistance, “cajol[ing] the crash footage out of Tarantino,” according to the Times.

Now, Thurman is sharing the footage on her own terms.