Portia de Rossi spoke out on Wednesday about her experiences with Steven Seagal, alleging that he acted inappropriately while she was auditioning for one of his films.
“My final audition for a Steven Seagal movie took place in his office,” she wrote on Twitter. “He told me how important it was to have chemistry off-screen as he sat me down and unzipped his leather pants.”
De Rossi said she ran out and called her agent, who replied, “Well, I didn’t know if he was your type.”
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De Rossi’s wife, Ellen DeGeneres, publicly declared her support for the actress. DeGeneres took to Twitter to respond to de Rossi’s tweet with a supportive tweet of her own.
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“I’m proud of my wife,” DeGeneres wrote.
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De Rossi’s claim comes on the heels of claims made by Julianna Marguiles, who alleges that she was also sexually harassed by Seagal.
Last week, Margulies recalled an encounter with Seagal, who she co-starred with in the 1991 film, Out for Justice.
“When I was 23, a casting director, a woman, said, ‘Steven Seagal wants to go over the scene with you in his hotel room at 10 o’clock at night,’ ” Margulies told Jenny Hutt for SiriusXM’s Just Jenny.
“I lived in Brooklyn, and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t do that. I don’t travel. I don’t have money for a cab.’ And I didn’t. And I said, ‘And I don’t take subways late at night.’ And she says, ‘Don’t worry we’ll reimburse you. And I’m here, a woman,’” Margulies recalled. “I got to the hotel at 10:40, and she wasn’t there. And he was. Alone. And he made sure that I saw his gun, which I had never seen a gun in real life. And I got out of there unscathed.”
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Similar allegations were made by actress Rae Dawn Chong and Inside Edition correspondent Lisa Guerrero. Seagal has been accused of sexual harassment in previous years by other actors, including Jenny McCarthy, who said she was asked to strip during a casting call for Under Siege 2.
A spokesman for Seagal previously denied McCarthy’s claims.
A number of entertainment figures, including Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Piven and Brett Ratner, have been accused of sexual misconduct following the Harvey Weinstein allegations which began last month.
Seagal has not commented on the new allegations as of this writing.
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