John Travolta is being sued for assault and battery by a cruise line employee. From Kevin Costner to Brett Favre and Al Gore, celebrities who have been accused of getting frisky with their massage therapists.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles this week, John Travolta was sued for alleged assault and sexual battery by an anonymous Los Angeles male massage therapist. According to the lawsuit, the married actor hired the $200-an-hour masseur in Beverly Hills in January, picked him up in a black Lexus, and had condoms on the dashboard. The complaint also claims Travolta stripped naked, touched the masseur’s penis, and offered to give him a “reverse massage.” When the masseur declined, he claims Travolta apologized and said they “must have gotten our signals crossed.” The masseur is seeking more than $2 million in damages, but Travolta’s spokesman says, “This lawsuit is complete fiction and fabrication. None of the events claimed in the suit ever occurred.”
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In 2010, then–New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre was accused of making some inappropriate passes—including sending nude photos—to Jenn Sterger, the team’s sideline reporter. Two months later, two massage therapists for the Jets came forward and sued the married QB for alleged sexual harassment, claiming he sexted them seeking a threesome. The pair also said they were not rehired by the team and included it in their suit, accusing the Jets of encouraging “a hotbed of sexual harassment, sexism and inappropriate behavior.” The team claimed the suit was “completely without merit,” but last month a Manhattan judge refused to dismiss it and ruled that Favre will have to testify in the case.
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“I did not have a homosexual relationship with a man in Denver,” pastor Ted Haggard said in 2006, when escort/masseur Mike Jones came forward to claim that they had had a relationship filled with sex and drugs for three years. “I am steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.” But several months later, the evangelical minister confessed that he had bought crystal meth from Jones and had engaged in “sexual immorality.” Pastor Ted eventually resigned from his church and all leadership positions in religious organizations. In a GQ profile last year, Haggard, who has since sold door-to-door insurance, was asked about the relationship with Jones. “We never had sex sex,” he said. “I bought drugs and a massage from him, and he masturbated me at the end of it. That’s it.”
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After having been accused of having sex with dozens of underage girls who performed “massages” at his Palm Beach mansion, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2010 and served 13 months in prison. One teenage girl recruited by Epstein claimed she even met Bill Clinton on two occasions, and the Daily Mail reported that Prince Andrew frequently received massages at Epstein’s home, though there was no evidence that he received any royal extras.
Neil Rasmus / Patrick McMullan / Sipa / Newscom
Long before he began refereeing fights between cheating spouses, talk-show host Jerry Springer was a city council member in Cincinnati who was forced to resign after admitting he had hired a prostitute. Springer was caught after a check he had written to a Kentucky massage parlor was uncovered in an investigation. The check, by the way, bounced—but so did Springer’s political career. Because of his honesty with the electorate, he won back his seat a few years later. And in 1980 Springer ran for governor of Ohio and discussed his indiscretions in an astonishingly honest campaign ad that prefigures the final segment of his eponymous show.
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Last year the National Enquirer published a salacious story claiming that Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, was caught in a sex scandal with Shailey Tripp, an Alaskan massage therapist who was arrested for running a house of prostitution. The Enquirer reported that “according to the tenants in the building of her offices, they saw Todd come and go often and heard noises that sounded like someone was having sex.” After vehement denials from the Palins, the Anchorage police department said the First Dude had absolutely no connection to Tripp. “It was just guilt by innuendo, nothing else,” Lt. Dave Parker told the New York Daily News. “There’s not one scintilla of evidence that Todd Palin had anything to do with this.”
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Proving he wasn’t untouchable, Kevin Costner was accused of exposing himself and masturbating in front of a massage therapist while on his honeymoon at a Scottish hotel in 2004. “I asked him how he liked his massage and he said he liked it sweet. I thought it a strange term to describe a massage,” the 34-year-old masseuse told a tribunal in Dundee, Scotland. “He asked me if I was comfortable touching him everywhere and I said no. Throughout the massage he kept putting his hand underneath his towel but he never kept it there long enough for me to suspect anything.” Then she claimed the actor removed the towel and pleasured himself. “It was disgusting,” the therapist said. Though Costner’s spokesman denied the allegations, the star settled the case privately.
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Weeks after Al Gore separated from his wife, Tipper, the National Enquirer reported that the former vice president was investigated in 2006 for making “unwanted sexual contact” with a Portland, Ore., massage therapist. According to her police statement: “I was shocked and I did not massage beyond what is considered a safe, nonsexual area of the abdomen. He further insisted and acted angry, becoming verbally sharp and loud ... I went into much deeper shock as I realized it appeared he was demanding sexual favors or sexual behaviors.” No charges were ever filed because the woman refused to cooperate with a police investigation or report it as a crime. “I did not immediately call the police as I feared being made into a public spectacle and my reputation being destroyed,” she said. “I was not sure what to tell them and was concerned my story would not be believed since there was no DNA evidence.”
Achmad Ibrahim / AP Photo
