Portia de Rossi shared her experience of sexual harassment on Twitter. Photo / Getty
Portia de Rossi shared her experience of sexual harassment on Twitter. Photo / Getty
Australian actress Portia de Rossi is the latest woman to come out with sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood heavyweight Steven Seagal.
The Arrested Development star took to Twitter to share one particularly disturbing casting experience she had with the Under Siege actor.
She tweeted: "My final audition for a StevenSegal [sic] 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."
Horrified, the actress says she ran out and called her agent, who she says was apparently unsurprised by de Rossi's story.
"Unfazed, [the agent] replied, 'well, I didn't know if he was your type'," wrote de Rossi.
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.”
According to Variety, reps for de Rossi and Segal could not immediately be reached for comment.
DeRossi's allegations come just days after The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies revealed that Seagal asked her to come to hotel room to "rehearse" when she was just 23. She claims the actor showed her "his gun".
"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 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 ... I never was raped. And I never was harmed. And I don't know how I got out of that hotel room ... I sort of screamed my way out," she said on the show Just Jenny.
Actress Julianna Margulies says Steven Seagal acted inappropriately towards her when she was just 23. Photo / AP
In October, Seagal made headlines after a 1988 audio tape of him referring to female journalists as "f**ing dirty w****s and c***suckers" was released online. The recording emerged after several women accused the actor of sexual harassment, including actress Rae Dawn Chong and journalist Lisa Guerrero.
Grey's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl has also spoken out about being sexually harassed by Seagal when she was just 16 years old.
In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel earlier this year, Heigl recalled working with Seagal on Under Siege 2. On the last of day of filming, Seagal allegedly said to the then-teenage actress: "You know Katie, I've got girlfriends your age."
Heigl responded, "Isn't that illegal" and claims Segal replied "They don't seem to mind".
In the interview, Kimmel also showed a photo of Heigl with Seagal, where he appears to be touching the young actress's breast.
Heigl said she has no recollection of the photo being taken. "I think we know why," she said.
Segal was also accused of sexual harassment by at least three other women, including actress Jenny McCarthy, who alleges he asked her to remove her dress during a casting call.
A former assistant sued Seagal in 2010 for sexual harassment and sex trafficking, but the suit was quickly dropped, while another assistant, Blair Robinson, claimed she was asked to give the action star massages as part of the job.
"It became clear to me that he wanted and expected sexual favours as part of my job duties," Robinson said, according to reports by the NY Daily News.
De Rossi's allegation is the latest in a long line of stories accusing power players in Hollywood, including producer Harvey Weinstein and actors Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman, of sexual harassment and abuse.
