Son of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ director slams underage nudity lawsuit: ‘Embarrassing’

He bites his thumb at them.

The son of director Franco Zeffirelli has slammed a $500 million lawsuit filed by Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey that alleges sexual abuse, harassment and fraud on the set of his father’s 1968 blockbuster “Romeo and Juliet.”

Pippo Zeffirelli hit out at the stars in a statement released Friday, saying: “It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional discomfort.”

Whiting, now 72, and Hussey, now 71, were both minors when they filmed the big-screen adaptation of the Shakespeare play and say they were promised that there would be no nudity in the flick.

However, during the final days of filming, director Zeffirelli reportedly urged the pair to do a scene in which they were not clothed and only wearing body makeup. Franco — who died in 2019 — allegedly told them that the film would fail if they did not appear nude.

Now, Whiting and Hussey say they “suffered mental anguish and emotional distress” as a result.

“What they were told and what went on were two different things,” a business manager for the actors has alleged following the filing of the new lawsuit. “They trusted Franco. At 16, as actors, they took his lead that he would not violate the trust they had. Franco was their friend, and frankly, at 16, what do they do? There are no options. There was no #MeToo.”

However, Franco’s son Pippo believes his director dad sought consent from the actor’s parents before filming the nude scenes.

In his statement, obtained by the Guardian, Pippo further declares that the film is “far from pornographic.”

“[My father] himself was accused of being reactionary precisely because, over and over again, he spoke out against pornography,” Pippo proclaimed. “The nude images in the film express the beauty, the transfer, I would even say the candor of mutual giving and do not contain any morbid feeling.”

Pippo also slammed both actors for having praised the film in the past and revealed that Hussey had worked with his father again for the 1977 TV miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth.”

“It appears to me that in all these years, they have always maintained a relationship of deep gratitude and friendship towards [my father] Zeffirelli, releasing hundreds of interviews about the happy memory of their very fortunate experience, which was crowned with worldwide success,” the defensive son declared.

Whiting and Hussey’s lawsuit — filed against Paramount Pictures — says they are seeking $500 million in damages.