George Takei ‘Shocked and Bewildered’ by Sexual Assault Claims

“…the very idea that someone would accuse me of this is quite personally painful,” the “Star Trek” actor says

George Takei
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George Takei denies the claim made Friday by former model Scott R. Brunton, who said the “Star Trek” actor groped him in 1981.

“I’m writing to respond to the accusations made by Scott R. Bruton,” Takei wrote in a Twitter thread on Saturday. “I want to assure you all that I am as shocked and bewildered at these claims as you must feel reading them.”

Scott R. Brunton told The Hollywood Reporter that he met Takei in 1981 at a bar in Hollywood, and they exchanged phone numbers. He went on to say that after a night on the town, they went back to Takei’s apartment for drinks and, after two, Brunton said he began “feeling very disoriented and dizzy” and “passed out.”

“The next thing I remember I was coming to and he had my pants down around my ankles,” Brunton said, adding that Takei 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.”

Takei didn’t respond immediately to the allegations because he is traveling in Japan and Australia, but he denied Bruton’s claims early Saturday.

“The events he describes back in the 1980s simply did not occur, and I do not know why he has claimed them now,” he wrote. “I have wracked my brain to ask if I remember Mr. Brunton, and I cannot say I do.

“But I do take these claims very seriously, and I wanted to provide my response thoughtfully and not out of the moment. Right now it is a he said / he said situation, over alleged events nearly 40 years ago. But those that know me understand that non-consensual acts are so antithetical to my values and my practices, the very idea that someone would accuse me of this is quite personally painful.”

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