NEW YORK: US action movie actor Steven Seagal was the latest Hollywood man to face mounting allegations of sexual harassment on Thursday, following the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey.
Portia de Rossi — the former Ally McBeal actress and wife of chat queen Ellen DeGeneres — accused the former martial arts expert and blues musician over an undated audition for a Seagal movie in his office.
"He told me how important it was to have chemistry off-screen as he sat me down and unzipped his leather pants," de Rossi tweeted late Wednesday.
"I ran out and called my agent. Unfazed, she replied, 'well, I didn't know if he was your type."
DeGeneres retweeted the post to her more than 75 million followers saying: "I'm proud of my wife."
Seagal's representatives did not immediately respond to requests to comment.
Julianna Margulies last week recounted an unpleasant encounter with the 65-year-old former 1980s star, whom she appeared with in the 1991 movie Out for Justice.
Margulies — who later shot to fame for her role in the 1990s hit series ER — said a female casting director told her Seagal wanted to go over a scene with her in his New York hotel room at night.
Margulies, 23 years old at the time, said that when she arrived she found the actor alone.
"He made sure that I saw his gun, which I had never seen a gun in real life," she told Sirius XM radio. "I got out of there unscathed," she said.
Seagal's fame peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s with films such as Under Siege and Above the Law, although he remains popular in eastern Europe.
He was last year accorded Russian and Serbian citizenship, personally collecting his Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
In 2010, he was sued by a then 23-year-old former assistant who claimed he treated her as a sexual object. She, however, later dropped the suit.
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