The family of a 17-year-old teenager has accused Oscar winner Jodie Foster of being rough with the boy after he snapped photographs of the Oscar-winning actress and her sons outside a movie theatre.

Foster's spokeswoman fired back that the "young man was most definitely a professional paparazzo."

"She did touch him on the arm to try to take him aside to talk to him and tell him to stop" taking pictures, the actress's spokeswoman, Jennifer Allen, said yesterday.

A report filed with Los Angeles police hours after the incident said Foster went up to the unidentified teen after he had snapped pictures of her, and that she poked him on the chest and grabbed his left arm.