Here Are All the Women Accusing Steven Seagal of Inappropriate Behavior

Steven Seagal is the latest Hollywood figure under the spotlight after accusations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior have surfaced.

On Friday, The Good Wife actor Julianna Margulies said she had a run-in with him in 1989 where the action movie star showed him his gun in his hotel room. Margulies isn’t the first to come forward with a bizarre Seagal story.

The 65-year-old Seagal rose to fame through movies like Above The Law, Under Siege, Executive Decision and Out For Justice. But today, he is best known for his activities in Russia, where he has citizenship, and his conservative views. During an interview with ITV in the U.K., he said he was skeptical about Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 U.S. election.

Seagal has faced allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence dating back to the early 1990s, at the height of his fame. He has seven children and has been married four times, most recently in 2009 to Erdenetuya Batsukh.

On Oct. 23, the Daily Mail also obtained audio recordings of Seagal calling female reporters “‘a bunch of f—ing dirty w—-s and ‘c—suckers” while promoting Above The Law in 1988.

Here’s a look at the allegations Seagal has faced during his career.

Warner Bros. Employees During ‘Out For Justice’ Filming

In May 1991, while filming Out For Justice, three Warner Bros. employees — Raenne Malone, Nicole Selinger, and Christine Keeve — accused Seagal of sexual harassment. A Spy magazine profile of Seagal notes that four assistants “quit because of Seagal’s continuing piggery.” Three of them said they would press sexual harassment charges against him. Malone and another woman ended up reaching $50,000 settlements in exchange for signing a confidentiality agreement. 

A 2002 Vanity Fair article reported that around the same time, at least four actresses accused the actor of making sexual advances during “casting sessions.” 

“His message was clear,” one actress told Vanity Fair at the time. “Have sex with me and you get the part.’”

Another actress told Vanity Fair that Seagal took her to Hotel Bel-Air. He “started talking about spirituality and other stuff,” the woman claimed. “Before I knew what was happening, he was showing me meridian and acupressure points on my body. The next thing I knew, he had taken off my blouse and was touching my breasts under my bra, showing me those ‘meridian points.’ When I finally was able to get him to stop, he told me I had the part.”

As Vanity Fair reported at the time, Seagal’s attorney Martin Singer threatened the Spy magazine reporter who wrote that profile, John Connolly, with a slander and libel lawsuit. After the article was published, the suits were withdrawn.  

Jenny McCarthy

In 1995, Seagal made a sequel to Under Siege, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Jenny McCarthy said she auditioned for a part in the film. She claims Seagal asked her to undress during the audition even though there was no nudity in the film.

“When I said, ‘Well, I’m ready to read,’ he said, ‘Stand up, you have to be kind of sexy in the movie and in that dress, I can’t tell.’ I stand up and he goes, ‘Take off your dress,’” McCarthy told Movieline in 1998. “I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘There’s nudity.’ I said, ‘No, there’s not, or I wouldn’t be here right now.’ He said again, ‘There’s nudity,’ and I said, ‘The pages are right in front of me. There’s no nudity.’ He goes, ‘Take off your dress.’ I just started crying and said, ‘Rent my [Playboy] video, you a–hole!’ and ran out to the car.”

McCarthy said Seagal grabbed her as she got into her car and told her not to tell anyone about what happened.

“I’m closing my car door and he grabs me and says, ‘Don’t you ever tell anybody.’ He won’t sue me or say anything because he knows it’s true,” McCarthy said in 1998. “If I saw him today, I would still say, ‘You’re a f—ing a–hole and I really hope you change your ways.’”

 

Cheryl Shuman

In 1995, optician Cheryl Shuman filed a lawsuit against Seagal, claiming the actor beat her during the production of On Deadly Ground. As the New York Daily News reported at the time, Shuman accused Seagal of sexual harassment, conspiracy, assault and battery, breach of contract and negligence. Singer called the lawsuit “ridiculous, frivolous, and totally specious.”

In the lawsuit, Shuman claimed she told Seagal about the custody battle she was in the middle of with her ex-husband. She claimed Seagal told her, “For $500 I can get someone to beat the bleep out of him. . . . I can take care of anybody and no one would ever know who was responsible.” She claimed that Seagal showed her a gun and said, “Nobody [bleeps] with me or someone I care about.”

The case was dismissed. In January 2015, Shuman was profiled by the New York Times and said her eyewear business collapsed after the case. An ovarian cancer survivor, she is now the founder of the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club. 

Kayden Nguyen

In 2010, Kayden Nguyen, who was 23 at the time, sued Seagal in Los Angeles County Superior Court for over $1 million in damages. Her sexual harassment lawsuit alleged that Seagal wanted Nguyen to join his “harem” of sex servants, according to CBS News. She claimed the harem already included two Russian beauties and she included “illegal trafficking of females for sex” in her lawsuit. 

Nguyen claimed Seagal hired her to be an executive assistant in February 2010 for his production company. Instead, she claims Seagal asked her to give him messages with a naked Russian “attendant.” Nguyen claimed Seagal told her she was replacing one of the women. 

“The lawsuit filed by Kayden Nguyen against Steven Seagal is a ridiculous and absurd claim by a disgruntled ex-employee who was fired for using illegal narcotics,” Singer said at the time.

The case was dismissed in July 2010 and the plaintiff gave no public reason. 

Lisa Guerrero

Lisa Guerrero, who is now an Inside Edition correspondent, told Newsweek in October 2017 that she had an audition at Seagal’s house. Her agent told her it could be her big break. She went there with a casting agency associate, Shari Rhodes.

When Seagal answered the door, he was only wearing a silk robe, Guerrero claims. He told them to come inside and he sat on an ornate char on a platform. After reading her part in the Fire Down Below script, Seagal said she was “fantastic” and Guerrero felt confident about getting the part. 

“I drove home feeling pretty good about the audition,” Guerrero told Newsweek, “and that same day my manager called. ‘Steven wants to offer you the lead,’ she said, ‘but you have to go back to his home for a private rehearsal tonight.’”

She didn’t go to the private rehearsal and only got a small role in the film as “Blonde Beauty.” When she got on the set, she overheard Seagal talking to male crew members. 

“He was looking at me and then he’d say something to them and there’d be laughter,” Guerrero told Newsweek. “Finally he approached me and asked, ‘Would you like to go into my dressing room?’”

Guerrero again declined and she has never seen Fire Down Below.

“When I read about Harvey Weinstein, the reports of him appearing in a robe triggered me,” Guerrero said. “That’s exactly what Steven Seagal did. I found out later that he was notorious for this.”

Julianna Margulies

In an interview with Sirius XM’s Just Jenny, Marguiles said she had a strange encounter with Seagal in 1989, when she was 23 years old.

“When I was 23, a casting director, a woman, said, ‘Steven Seagal wants to go over the scene with you in his hotel room at 10 o’clock at night,’” Margulies said “I lived in Brooklyn, and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t do that. I don’t travel. I don’t have money for a cab.’ And I didn’t. And I said, ‘And I don’t take subways late at night.’ And she says, ‘Don’t worry we’ll reimburse you. And I’m here, a woman.’”

Once she got to his hotel room, the casting director wasn’t there. Seagal was there alone. 

“And he made sure that I saw his gun, which I had never seen a gun in real life,” she recalled.

Marguiles said she got out of the hotel room as soon as she could. 

“I got out of there unscathed,” she said. “I never was raped. And I never was harmed. And I don’t know how I got out of that hotel room. … I sorta screamed my way out.”

Rae Dawn Chong

On Oct. 17, Rae Dawn Chong (Commando) told The Wrap that the Harvey Weinstine scandal is just the “top of an ugly iceberg” for Hollywood. She wrote about a meeting with Seagal at the Bel Air hotel in the 1980s. 

Her agency at the time, CAA, told her the meeting was going to be at 9:30 p.m. When she arrived at the hotel, Chong was told to go to his hotel room. “I knew then that I was being pimped by the agency,” she told The Wrap. She didn’t want to go into his room, but she still went to his door to confirm the appointment. He answered the door wearing only his bathrobe. 

“I stood outside the open door mortified that I was told to go to this meeting,” Chong said. “My heart broke because my agency had obviously pimped me out to this creep.”

After he hoped the door, he “walked across his room and sat in a chair and manspread so I could see his junk. But he casually covered back up as if it was a mistake,” Chong claims. She said he then asked if he could feel her blouse. She refused. 

When she got home, she cried “because I realized the agency did not care about me. I left them, hurt and betrayed. Of course I struggled for work after that, and I was angry at them for lying and betraying my trust.”

Seagal didn’t comment on Chong’s allegation.