Portia De Rossi Claims Steven Seagal Sexually Harassed Her During An Audition
The Scandal star is breaking her silence.
According to Entertainment Tonight, Portia de Rossi accused director Steven Seagal of sexually harassing her during an audition for one of his films when she took to Twitter on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017.
"My final audition for a Steven Segal [sic] movie took place in his office," the 44-year-old actress wrote. "He told me how important it was to have chemistry off-screen as he sat me down and unzipped his leather pants. I ran out and called my agent. Unfazed, she replied, 'well, I didn't know if he was your type.'"
My final audition for a Steven Segal movie took place 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. I️ ran out and called my agent. Unfazed, she replied, "well, I didn't know if he was your type."
— Portia de Rossi (@portiaderossi) November 8, 2017
Ellen DeGeneres was quick to show her wife of nine years public support. "I'm proud of my wife," she wrote in a tweet.
I'm proud of my wife. https://t.co/NABbOJoBrf
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) November 9, 2017
De Rossi's allegation against Seagal follows similar claims made by other actresses, including Inside Edition correspondent Lisa Guerrero and The Good Wife actress Julianna Margulies. In October, Guerrero accused Seagal of answering his dressing room door "in a silk robe and nothing else" when she arrived for an audition. She refused to go into the room and was later cut from the project.
On SiriusXM's Just Jenny on Nov. 4, Margulies revealed, "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.' 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,'" she continued. "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."
Over the last month, the entertainment has been rocked by ongoing sexual misconduct scandals. Multiple men in Hollywood have been accused of sexual harassment and assault, including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and several others.