By Sheri

DID JODIE FOSTER SCRATCH AND BRUISE A TEENAGER?

Actress Jodie Foster, 47, best remembered as Clarice in Silence of the Lambs (okay, well that’s what I still remember her most in) is facing charges for an alleged attack on a 17 year boy at The Grove mall in Los Angeles on May 29. The Grove is a popular LA mall and Jodie was there with her sons, Charles, 11, and Christopher, 8, who reportedly were embarrassed by the incident (yeah well kids at that age are mortified by everything their parents do in public.)

The unnamed boy’s family and Foster’s rep are saying completely different accounts of what happened, much like a case on a TV court show. The 17 year old’s father is telling press that his son is a good boy (yeah all parents say that…) who was at The Grove with his girlfriend to see a movie when he spotted Foster. Since he was a huge fan of hers, the dad explains, the 17 year old began taking pictures of Jodie and her sons in the parking lot as they were leaving the mall. Then, apparently, a pissed off Jodie Foster grabbed the boy’s arm, poked him in the chest and called him a ‘slime ball.”

Jodie’s rep says Foster didn’t hurt the boy, who had followed the actress and her sons during the afternoon and didn’t just happen upon them. Foster’s rep says that the 17 year old carried a large camera bag with a telephoto lens and is, in fact, a professional paparrazo. (Okay yeah what guy going to the movies with his girlfriend brings all of that er um equipment? On the other hand, do the gossip mags hire underage photogs?)

Maybe, like the old saying goes during he said she said cases, the real truth of what really happened at the mall that afternoon lies somewhere in the middle…