Charlotte Lewis

Lewis attended Bishop Douglass School in Finchley. Her mother is Irish-English, and her father is half-Chilean and half-Iraqi.

Lewis made her film debut as a teenager in the 1986 Roman Polanski film Pirates. She followed it that same year with the co-lead in The Golden Child alongside Eddie Murphy. Later appearances include the film Tripwire (1990) and Storyville (1992), opposite James Spader. She had a co-starring role in Men of War (1994), alongside Dolph Lundgren, and in the 1995 film Decoy. Lewis appeared in the 2003 film Hey DJ. Lewis also appeared in a cover-featured pictorial in the July 1993 issue of Playboy magazine. In 1995, Lewis appeared in the direct-to-video erotic horror film Embrace of the Vampire (starring Alyssa Milano) and guest-starred in an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld as George Costanza's seemingly-bulimic girlfriend. Lewis acted in the 2019 film Lost Angelas playing Angie Malone, one of the title roles.

On 14 May 2010, Lewis and her Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred accused Roman Polanski of having sexually assaulted Lewis when she was 16 years old, while the two were working on Pirates. Prosecutors in Los Angeles confirmed that they interviewed Lewis in connection with the allegations. According to Lewis, the incident occurred at Polanski's Paris apartment in 1983. On 17 May 2010, an article called into question Lewis' testimony by referencing an account of events she gave in an interview with the UK's News of the World, in which she had spoken of a relationship with Polanski, along with several other actors. Later, in December 2019, French magazine L’Obs came back to the News of the World story, relating a "violent campaign to discredit her" in the media. Charlotte Lewis said: "I was completely alone in 2010. No one believed me. They said I was a prostitute, a liar. I'm a little anxious to talk. The media got me so depressed." Lewis filed a claim for defamation, and Polanski was charged under French law. She told the court, which specialised in media cases, and was concerned with the defamation and not the rape allegation, that she had become the victim of a "smear campaign" that "nearly destroyed" her life. Polanski did not attend any of the hearings, including the verdict given in his favour in May 2024, when he was acquitted of the defamation.