Moviemaker Brett Ratner appears to be making a weird joke with a scene in the film ‘New York I Love You.’

Ratner reportedly told the UK Daily Express that he lost his virginity to a paraplegic dangling from a tree and that now he has turned the sexual encounter into a scene in the collaborative work of short films by various directors. The alleged deflowering took place in Miami, Florida while the film’s scene is set in Central Park.

The ‘Rush Hour’ director also apparently told the paper he had to tone it down because producers couldn’t stomach the idea of his lead actor, Anton Yelchin, making love to a tied-up paraplegic woman.

“It’s probably my most personal film,” Ratner reportedly said. “When I sent the original script, which is autobiographical, the producers would not let me film it because, in the original ending, she (the girl) is a cripple, and they have sex as she’s hanging from a tree in Central Park.

“Everyone was freaking out over my short, so I changed it to where she wasn’t a cripple, but an actress pretending to be a cripple.”

In the scene, the girl, played by Olivia Thirlby, insists Ratner’s character (Yelchin) make love to her, while she is suspended from a tree.

If, however, something strikes you as faintly suspect about Ratner’s claims, you might be right. TheImproper.com points out that the story appears to be directly purloined from an old joke that involves a paraplegic woman having sex while dangling from a tree.

The Improper says, “It’s a sick joke, but it’s even sicker, almost unbelievable, that Ratner has incorporated the alleged sexual encounter into a scene in his latest film, ‘New York I love You.’ And has the audacity to claim it’s true.”

Ratner also claimed to have had problems shooting in Central Park due to tree related regulations. “I had just two days to shoot the scene. I thought it would be easy because it was Central Park,” he said. “I go into the park and I take the girl, and she weighs, like, 75 pounds and I hang her off the tree. The problem was that the law in Central Park states that you’re not allowed to touch a tree if you’re a film crew; you can’t go near a tree.

“So they said, ‘You can’t do this, can you make it a pole?’ I said, ‘I can’t, it has to be a tree.’ They wouldn’t even allow us to go on the grass. So, in the gravel part of the park, I put all this fake grass down and we had to bring in, believe it or not, our own tree that we flew in from upstate New York! We put that tree up and it was a nightmare because there were park rangers watching us making sure we weren’t breaking the law. It was crazy.”

Why he might have lied about the encounter is unclear.

Ratner has recently signed on to direct ‘Rush Hour 3.’ No word on whether it will involve a priest and a rabbi waking into a bar, a chicken crossing a road or a family act called ‘The Aristocrats.’

(Photo by PR Photos)