(Time will tell if Bones comes to Sensei Seagal’s aid like he did Bill Cosby’s.)
I don’t know if Steven Seagal is my favorite cartoon character of all time, but he definitely cracks the top 5 (somewhere between Randy Marsh and Duckman). Like all great cartoon characters, Seagal combines a dangerous lack of self-awareness with a penchant for (unintentionally) hilarious one-liners. He’s also the ultimate anti hero — an egomaniacal martial artist-cum-actor-cum-blues musician who has held the titles of both deity and Cock Puncher without once cracking under the insanity of it all. How can you not love the guy?
Well, if the recent lawsuit filed against Seagal is any indication, the answer to the that question is simple: Because he won’t allow you *not* to. (Ed note: Too soon? Too soon.)
According to The New York Daily News, the star of On Deadly Ground and perpetual guy-who-hangs-around MMA fighters is being sued to the tune of $1 million by Kayden Nguyen, a 23-year-old model claiming that what started off as a job cleaning mountains of D’Angelo’s wrappers out of Seagal’s Subaru Baja somehow devolved into something much, much more disgusting:
Nguyen says she was hired as an assistant, but then was used as a “sex toy.” Reportedly two other women have provided sworn declarations to assist in the lawsuit. Both women worked for Seagal but resigned after he made inappropriate sexual advances towards them.
Seagal’s lawyer Marty Singer characterized the accusations as “absurd” and says the actor has “no knowledge of these women.”
He continued, “The declarations were clearly prepared by Nguyen’s lawyer to be leaked to the media to help bolster his client’s meritless claims.”
Seagal has yet to personally respond to the allegations, but I imagine his defense would sound something like, “I was merely trying to school this sexual neophyte in the ancient arts of shiatsu massage and she freaked out when I tried to unite my soul with hers, Avatar-style.”
This isn’t the first bit of hot water Seagal has found himself in recent years. In addition to his troubles with the IRS, Seagal was also recently sued “for non-payment to a former movie producer and business associate with mob ties” in 2012, to the sum of $500,000. This after Seagal was sued for $60 million by the same producer back in 2002 for failing to deliver on four movies he agreed to star in. That suit was eventually dropped.
Relevant: From Pajiba’s “30 Fascinating Facts About Saturday Night Live”:
Steven Seagal was not only considered one of the worst hosts of all time by the audience, but by the writers, who thought he was a terror, suggesting at one point a sketch in which he played a rape counselor who tried to sleep with his patients.
From Seagal’s ex-wife, Kelly LeBrock: ““I was constantly raped and abused my whole life. I had a life before Steven Seagal, and a life after him. But good or bad, he is a part of my life.”
And finally, these classic Seagal stories as told by Rob Schneider:
Clearly, this man is a danger to himself and those around him and needs to be sent to a deserted island for a long time. We’ll have more on this story as it develops.