A Los Angeles radio personality accused Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, Thursday of forcing himself on her with an unwanted kiss while they were rehearsing a USO Tour skit 11 years ago, and of groping her while she slept on an airplane at the end of the tour.
Franken, famed for his Saturday Night Live comedy writing, producing and performing, apologized to Leeann Tweeden, the news anchor on McIntyre in the Morning on KABC Radio. He said he has a different recollection of the skit rehearsal, but said he welcomes a Senate ethics investigation into the allegation.
Tweeden, a former model, wrote on her station’s website that the episode occurred in December 2006, when she went to Afghanistan on her ninth USO Tour to entertain troops. The headliner was Franken.
Franken had written some skits for the show and brought props and costumes to go along with them, Tweeden wrote, adding that the skits were full of sexual innuendo geared toward a young male audience.
One of the skits had Franken coming at her for a kiss. On the day of the show, Franken and Tweeden were alone backstage going over their lines, and he said they had to rehearse the kiss, she wrote.
“We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth,” Tweeden wrote.
“I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time. I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth. I felt disgusted and violated.”
She said she did not register a complaint over Franken’s behavior but made sure over the rest of the trip that she and Franken would not be alone.
But during the 36-hour trip home to Los Angeles, she fell asleep aboard the C-17 cargo plane ferrying the USO troop “even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet.”
Once back in the United States, she looked at a CD of pictures taken by a photographer and discovered a photo showing Franken appearing to grab her breasts and grinning at the camera.
“I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep,” she wrote. “I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?”
“I wanted to shout my story to the world with a megaphone to anyone who would listen, but even as angry as I was, I was worried about the potential backlash and damage going public might have on my career as a broadcaster.
“But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid” and “I’m still angry at what Al Franken did to me.”
Franken issued a statement in response to the allegations, apologizing to Tweeden and “everyone who counts on me to be an ally and supporter and champion of women.”
“I respect women,” he said. “I don’t respect men who don’t. And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed.”
Franken noted that as a comedian he wrote and told jokes that he late “came to realize were just plain offensive,” and he apologized that it has “taken me so long to come to terms with that.”
“While I don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit as Leeann does, I understand why we need to listen to and believe women’s experiences,” Franken said.
The photo from the cargo flight was widely circulated on social media and in news broadcasts Thursday, and Franken said there’s “no excuse” for it.
“I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself,” he said. “It isn’t funny. It’s completely inappropriate. It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it — women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.”
Franken concluded his statement by offering continued support of women who come forward with allegations of harassment.
“They deserve to be heard, and believed. And they deserve to know that I am their ally and supporter. I have let them down and am committed to making it up to them,” he said.
–City News Service