George Takei “Shocked and Bewildered” by Sexual Assault Allegations
Photo: By Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images.
On Friday evening, The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Scott R. Brunton, a former model who accused Star Trek star George Takei of sexual assault during an incident that occurred in 1981.
“This happened a long time ago, but I have never forgotten it,” Brunton told THR. “It is one of those stories you tell with a group of people when people are recounting bizarre instances in their lives, this always comes up. I have been telling it for years, but I am suddenly very nervous telling it.”
He described his friendship with Takei, whom Brunton says he confided in when he was 23 and working in Hollywood as a waiter and burgeoning actor and model. They ran into each other a few times, and once when Brunton told him about breaking up with his boyfriend, Takei asked him for his number. He gave it to him, and Takei called him not long after, when Brunton had moved out of his apartment. Takei invited him over to his place and the two had a few drinks. Brunton describes feeling “very disoriented and dizzy” and apparently passed out on a large yellow beanbag chair Takei had in his apartment.
“The next thing I remember,” Brunton said, “I was coming to and he had my pants down around my ankles and he was groping my crotch and trying to get my underwear off and feeling me up at the same time, trying to get his hands down my underwear. I came to and said, ‘What are you doing?!’ I said, ‘I don't want to do this.’ He goes, ‘You need to relax. I am just trying to make you comfortable. Get comfortable.’ And I said, ‘No. I don't want to do this.’ And I pushed him off and he said, ‘OK, fine.’ And I said I am going to go and he said, ‘If you feel you must. You’re in no condition to drive.’ I said, ‘I don’t care, I want to go.’ So I managed to get my pants up and compose myself and I was just shocked. I walked out and went to my car until I felt well enough to drive home, and that was that.”
Brunton’s accusation adds to a seemingly endless list of Hollywood celebrities accused of sexual harassment and/or assault after the bombshell allegations against Harvey Weinstein broke in October. Takei rose to fame after playing Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek television series, and has made a name for himself in the following decades as an advocate for LGBTQ rights. He responded to the allegations on Saturday morning, explaining in a thread on Twitter that he did not remember the incident at all, and that it “simply did not occur.” “I want to assure you all that I am as shocked and bewildered at these claims as you must feel reading them,” he wrote.
This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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