‘David Cop-a-feel is my favourite magician, said Bush as he groped me’
Best-selling author ‘deeply sorry’ as five women accuse him of harassment
FORMER US president George HW Bush has apologised again after a second woman claimed he groped her while they posed for a photograph.
Actress Jordana Grolnick also said Mr Bush, now 93, made a remark about his favourite magician being “David Cop-a-feel”, after illusionist David Copperfield.
She told the New York Post that Mr Bush, who uses a wheelchair, visited a theatre in the US state of Maine in August last year. She said he groped her while posing with her fellow castmates and his wife Barbara.
Grolnick decided to speak out after another actress, Heather Lind, revealed a similar incident from 2014. Grolnick said: “It really didn’t strike me as anything — it was the president.
“In light of all this ‘me too’ — with women coming out and telling their stories — I rethought it and thought ‘No, it shouldn’t happen.’
“I’m not trying to ruin the rest of his life. We should abolish that sort of behaviour at any level.”
A spokesperson for Mr Bush, who served one presidential term from 198993, apologised last night for the second time in 24 hours. A statement said: “At age 93, President Bush has been con- fined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures. To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent, others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologises most sincerely.” BEST-SELLING author and political journalist Mark Halperin today became the latest high-profile figure to be accused of sexual harassment following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Halperin, 52, who co-wrote Game Change, about Barack Obama’s 2008 election win, today apologised for his “inappropriate behaviour”.
“I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with,” he said. “I now underst and from these accounts that my behaviour was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologise.”
Five women have claimed Halperin, now a political analyst for NBC News, sexually harassed them while he was in a powerful position at ABC News. One told CNN: “I went up to have a soda and talk and he just kissed me and grabbed my boobs.”
Yesterday, actress Natassia Malthe, 43, accused Weinstein of raping her in a London hotel room in 2008. His lawyer has said he “categorically denies” all allegations of non-consensual sex.