Schwarzenegger groped, degraded us, 6 women say

[Theo]

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryne...al/6913629.htm

Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger over the past three decades say he touched them in a sexual manner without their consent.

In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said he reached under her skirt and grabbed her buttocks.

A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit. A sixth said Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her.

According to the women's accounts, one of the incidents occurred in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, two in the 1990s and one in 2000.

``Did he rape me? No,'' said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger grabbed her breast. ``Did he humiliate me? You bet he did.''

Four of the six women told their stories on condition that they not be named.

Three work in Hollywood and said they were worried that, if they were identified, their careers would be in jeopardy for speaking out against Schwarzenegger, the onetime bodybuilding champion and box-office star who is now the front-runner in the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election. The other unnamed woman said she feared public ridicule and possible damage to her husband's business.

In those four cases, friends or relatives said the women told them about the incidents long before Schwarzenegger's run for governor.

None of the six women filed any legal action against him.

Schwarzenegger's campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate had not engaged in improper conduct toward women. He said such allegations are part of an escalating political attack on Schwarzenegger as the recall election draws near.

``We believe Democrats and others are using this to try to hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign,'' Walsh said. ``We believe that this is coming so close before the election, something that discourages good, hard-working, decent people from running for office.''

He said Schwarzenegger would have no comment.

None of the women approached the Times on her own, and none was identified by Schwarzenegger's rivals in the recall race.

7-week investigation

All were interviewed by the newspaper in the course of a seven-week investigation.

Schwarzenegger's attitudes about women have been an issue on the campaign trail, where critics have accused him of being misogynistic, based on accounts of his behavior and his statements. In response, Schwarzenegger has said he respects women and that many of his comments were said in jest or simply meant to be provocative.

The earliest incident of the six was said to have occurred in 1975 at Gold's Gym near Venice Beach. E. Laine Stockton, then newly married to bodybuilder Robby Robinson, said she had come to the gym to watch her husband.

Stockton was 19 at the time. She said she was wearing slacks, tennis shoes and a loose-fitting T-shirt. She said she was not wearing a bra.

As she sat on an exercise bench, Stockton said, Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached his left hand under her T-shirt and touched her bare left breast.

``The gym is full of bodybuilders, and Arnold comes and he gropes my breast -- actually touches my breast with his left hand,'' she said.

She said Schwarzenegger then simply walked away.

Stockton said she does not rule out the possibility that Schwarzenegger ``may have meant it in playfulness.'' But she did not take it that way.

``I was just shocked, shocked to the point where I almost didn't know how to react, because it was so out of the blue and so unexpected,'' she said.

Robinson, a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe, said he had been across the gym.

``I ran up and tried to comfort her,'' said Robinson, who has since had a falling out with Schwarzenegger. (Robinson, who is black and was known as the ``Black Prince'' during his years on the professional bodybuilding circuit, has accused Schwarzenegger of racism -- a charge that Schwarzenegger's campaign denies.)

``What he did was uncalled for, but I couldn't say nothing,'' Robinson said, explaining that he feared he'd be ostracized by the bodybuilding world.

The next incident was said to have occurred in 1980. A former pro beach volleyball player said Schwarzenegger touched her breast on a Santa Monica street.

The two knew each other. She worked as a waitress at Fromin's deli, she said, a place Schwarzenegger frequented. One day, she recalled, Schwarzenegger asked her when she was going on break. ``We could have a lot of fun in half an hour,'' she remembered him saying.

Schwarzenegger renewed his invitation, she said, when he later spotted her playing in a women's volleyball tournament at Venice Beach. ``After the game, he came up to me and said, `Now you will come to my apartment.' He didn't want to hear no.''

The woman, who was 22, said she told him, ``It's not going to happen.''

This time, she said, as she walked along 19th Street, Schwarzenegger conveyed a sense of urgency: ``Come close, it's very important.'' As she drew nearer, she recounted, Schwarzenegger ``grabbed and squeezed'' her left breast.

``If I was a man,'' she said she told him, ``I would bust your jaw.''

As tears welled in her eyes, she said, Schwarzenegger laughed. ``He thought it was hilarious.''

She said she went to her car and ``just started crying and crying.''

The woman said she told her sister about the encounter. In a telephone interview, the sister confirmed she had been told about the incident at the time.

Magazine interview

British television host Anna Richardson accused Schwarzenegger of touching her breast in a March 2001 Premiere magazine article. In an interview with the Times, she confirmed that account.

Richardson said she was interviewing the actor in December 2000 in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Richardson said she had interviewed Schwarzenegger previously and he had been a ``perfect gentleman.''

``This time around was quite different,'' she recalled. ``He was already kind of hyped up. He kept looking at my breasts, kept asking if I worked out,'' she said. ``I went to shake his hand, and he grabbed me onto his knee and he said, `Before you go, I want to know if your breasts are real.' ''

Richardson, then 29, said she replied that her breasts were real. ``At that point, he circled my left nipple with his finger and he said, `Yes, they are real.' ''

The Schwarzenegger campaign provided a different account.

Sheryl Main, a Hollywood publicist who has accompanied him on his worldwide travels since 1995, said she was present. Main said Richardson provocatively approached Schwarzenegger. She said that after finishing the brief interview, Richardson rose, cupped her right breast in her right hand and said, ``What do you think of these?'' She then sat on his lap and was immediately escorted from the room, Main said.

A movie studio secretary said Schwarzenegger grabbed her buttocks in the late 1980s.

She said the episode occurred on the Columbia Pictures lot, where she worked. One day her boss, a woman, asked if she would like to meet Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger was seated on a couch. The secretary, then in her 30s, said when the conversation ended, she approached Schwarzenegger to shake his hand.

He remained seated, she said, and he slipped his left hand under her skirt and grabbed her right buttock.

``He just held on. He held on and said, `You have a very nice ass.' He said, `I'd love to work you out.' ''

The door, not far from where Schwarzenegger was sitting, was open, and the secretary said she remembers seeing a couple of people outside look in at them -- and then quickly look away.

``I was just thinking, `Let me get out of here.' ''

[Theo]

She said she looked at her boss, who kept repeating, `` `We've got to go now. We've got to go now,' and yanking my arm.''

The secretary said Schwarzenegger released her after about 20 seconds.

Later, the secretary said her flustered supervisor remarked, ``Oh, my gosh! I had no idea he would do that.'' The secretary said she replied: ``Oh, well, no big deal.''

``I was sort of embarrassed in front of her. It just felt strange.''

Now 47, she has recounted the story numerous times. She told the story to a friend, Michael Collins, a freelance writer and director of the Los Angeles Press Club. In an interview with the Times, Collins said she recounted the episode to him eight months ago -- well before the recall race.

1990 incident

In late 1990, Schwarzenegger was in the San Bernardino County town of Fontana, shooting ``Terminator 2: Judgment Day.'' According to a female crew member, Schwarzenegger harassed her on several occasions.

She recalled encountering the actor in an elevator as she headed down to the hotel pool. On each occasion, she said, she was wearing a robe over a black, one-piece swimsuit.

``At least three times -- if not more -- he would end up in the elevator with me, groping me and trying to take my robe off,'' said the crew member, now 41 and still working in the movie industry.

``He would pin me against the corner in the elevator'' and try to take off her robe and pull down the straps of her suit, she said.

The woman said her reaction to Schwarzenegger's overtures evolved with each incident. ``The first time, you're like, `Oh, my God! I was groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger!' The second time you're like, `This is disgusting.' The third time you're like, `Get the . . . away from me.' ''

The crew member said she told her husband about the incidents. ``I heard this story a long time ago,'' her husband confirmed.

Another woman, now a wife and mother in her 30s, said she also fell in Schwarzenegger's ``sight lines'' while ``Terminator 2'' was being filmed.

A member of the movie crew, she said Schwarzenegger was sitting in a director's chair, surrounded by three or four other men, waiting for filming to start.

``I was walking on the set, and Arnold called out, `Come here, you sexy devil,' and reached out and pulled me on to his lap,'' the woman recalled.

She said he then whispered in her ear: ``Have you ever had a man slide his tongue'' in your anus?

``I didn't know how to react,'' she said. ``What he said was so specifically sexual, it was bizarre.

``I remember looking around and seeing this bank of smiling faces and feeling alone,'' she continued. ``It was kind of like everything he did was OK, and isn't it funny and isn't it swell?

``I didn't fall apart,'' she said, but added: ``It's embarrassing and degrading when you're doing a job.''

The woman said she recounted the incident at the time to a family member. In an interview with the Times, the family member confirmed being told about it.

Some of the dozens of people interviewed for this article stressed that the culture on movie sets tends to be rowdy and permissive. Often, the tone is set by the star, they said.

In Schwarzenegger's case, they said, his sense of humor and language is often outrageous -- but not mean-spirited. Many of his colleagues find him to be charming.

``He's fun, extremely intelligent and very professional,'' said stuntwoman Simone Boisseree, who worked with Schwarzenegger on four films. ``I like him as a human being and think he's a decent guy.''

Another stuntwoman, Chere Rae Bryson, came away with a different impression after working with Schwarzenegger on the 1990 movie ``Total Recall.'' She said he often used vulgar words for vagina and clitoris.

``He was crude, boisterous and disparaging around women,'' she said.

Bryson said Schwarzenegger seemed to have toned down his behavior when she worked with him on a second movie, ``Collateral Damage,'' released in 2002.

``People do change as we get older,'' she said.

Bryson said Schwarzenegger was also on his best behavior whenever his wife, Maria Shriver, was present. The couple married in 1986. ``When Maria was around, he was a gentleman,'' she said. ``When she wasn't around, he was the opposite.''

[Sly_RJ]

I was waiting for all of his affairs to come out of the woodworks. Haha.

[Juicy D. Links]

I bet the women werent complaining back then when they had Arnold's dong in there mouth

[Tala]

Larry Flynt for govenor!


He'd NEVER do that sort of thing.

[goBigtime]

Hey EscortBiz.....

check tushylickers member logs for "mruniverse"

[foolio]

ya, the fag even groped my man-boobs

[playa]

You see this why i am not running for governor.

[TheFLY]

I think Arnold should sell a "seduction secrets" book

[SomeCreep]

Thats nothing, G.W. Bush used to drive under the influence of alcohol and did narcotics when he was younger. Look at him now, he's president of the United States.

[Herb Kornfield]

[JDog]

Originally posted by Tala
Larry Flynt for govenor!


He'd NEVER do that sort of thing.

jDOG