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George H. W. Bush apologizes for his wandering hands.
At least two women have accused POTUS 41 of taking
liberties by patting them on the ass when they were posing to have picture taken with him and Barbara Bush
The office of
George H.W. Bush said Wednesday that the former President occasionally “has
patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner.” The
statement came
as a second woman accused Bush of groping her.
“At age 93,
President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his
arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures,” a statement from Bush’s office released minutes before the second
accusation was publicized reads. “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,” the statement
continues. “To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most
sincerely.”
New York-based
actress Jordana Grolnick told Deadspin that Bush groped her in August 2016 during
the intermission of a play she was performing in at a Maine theater. A frequent
patron of the theater, Bush came backstage with his wife, former first lady
Barbara Bush, for a photo with the cast.
“We all circled
around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” Grolnick told
Deadspin. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for
the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician
is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!’” an
apparent sexualized reference to famed magician David Copperfield.
Heather Lind, who starred in the AMC cable television network’s
historical drama “Turn: Washington’s Spies,” accused Bush of groping her as
they posed for photos together with his wife and others during a promotional
event for the show in 2014.
The
allegation surfaced in an Instagram post from Lind featuring a photograph of
Bush, 93, shaking hands with former President Barack Obama during an appearance
of all five living former presidents at Saturday’s hurricane fund-raising
benefit.
In the post, Lind, 34, said that seeing that photo reminded her
of her own meeting with the 41st president three years earlier, when, according
to her, “he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo.”
“He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his
wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side,” Lind wrote. “He told me a
dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again.”
