John Travolta was accused of groping a masseur’s bare buttocks, exposing himself, and making lewd suggestions to the 21-year-old man at a California hotel, according to a police report that has now been published on the website Radar Online.
According to the police report, the John Doe masseur accused Travolta of “sexual battery,” however the police officer who investigated the alleged incident says in his report that “the details do not meet the elements of battery… or ‘sexual battery.’” Travolta has denied similar claims in the past.
The officer noted in his report that the unidentified masseur “was not restrained unlawfully” and “consented to the touching after Travolta told him he was attractive, after Travolta said he had been excited, after Travolta removed his towel, and while Travolta was naked along with (redacted) in the steam room.”
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In the police report, the masseur alleged that the Pulp Fiction star groped his bare buttocks and indecently exposed himself during a private late-night deep-tissue massage and “citrus scrub” at the tony La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California, on Feb. 15, 2000.
According to the documents, published by Radar Online, the masseur was summoned to the hotel at 1:30 a.m. The spa, he claimed, had been opened specifically for Travolta’s use only. Travolta, 63, allegedly asked the masseur to concentrate on his buttocks.
Travolta, the masseur alleged, “kept removing the towel… and exposing his buttocks” as he received the massage.
After that massage was complete, they allegedly went into another room where the masseur gave Travolta a “citrus scrub.”
During the treatment, Travolta, a leading Scientologist, allegedly told the masseur that he was very attractive and that he had gotten him “excited,” the documents said.
The report states that once the “scrub” was complete, “they moved to the steam room… where Travolta asked it he would accompany him, so he wouldn’t have to sit alone.”
The masseur claimed to have agreed, and claimed that Travolta removed his towel and “was nude.”
Travolta then allegedly offered to demonstrate his own massage techniques on the masseur, to which the masseur agreed.
As the man lay on his stomach, “Travolta reached under his towel and began to rub his inner thigh” before “rubbing him on his bare buttocks, as well as in the groove between the buttocks,” the masseur claimed.
According to the report, the masseur claimed he felt “uncomfortable” and left, but then Travolta followed, offering to “soap up” his back while he showered (the masseur said he declined).
While the masseur was packing up his massage table in Travolta’s room, he alleged that Travolta made lewd comments toward him and asked if he’d “ever had his asshole licked by another man.”
Officer Mark Peters went to the hotel to speak with Travolta, who had already checked out by the time he arrived.
The case was later “closed unfounded” and Peters advised the man to “speak with a civil attorney.”
In May 2012, two John Doe masseurs filed separate $2 million civil lawsuits against Travolta alleging sexual harassment.
The first, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, saw an unnamed male masseur accuse the then-58-year-old Saturday Night Fever star of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, claiming that he received several unwanted sexual advances from the actor during a private massage appointment at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2012.
In the suit, the masseur claimed that Travolta touched his penis during the massage session, masturbated in front of him, and then requested to give the masseur a handjob. When the masseur refused, according to the suit, “Defendant began screaming at Plaintiff, telling Plaintiff how selfish he was; that Defendant got to where he is now due to sexual favors he had performed when he was in his Welcome Back, Kotter days; and that Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity. Defendant then went on to say how he had done things in his past that would make most people throw up.”
The second unnamed male masseur, represented by the same attorney, Okorie Okorocha, alleged that Travolta sexually harassed him during a private massage at an unnamed Atlanta hotel that same year. The John Doe claimed at the time to have “substantial documentation and numerous witnesses regarding the substance of Travolta’s actions.”
On May 9, 2012, Travolta’s team provided proof that he wasn’t in Los Angeles at the time of the alleged incident. The John Doe masseur then claimed that he had gotten the date wrong. Six days later, Okorocha filed a request with the court to dismiss the first John Doe’s lawsuit, in a document obtained by Gawker.
Travolta’s lawyer at the time, Marty Singer—who has also represented accused sexual predators Bill Cosby, Bryan Singer, Brett Ratner, and Charlie Sheen—issued the following statement at the time, according to TMZ:
“This second ‘anonymous’ claim is just as absurd and ridiculous as the first one. The attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of his second anonymous client, who does not want to disclose his name although he is required to do so, was notified that his first client’s claims were totally false and fabricated, since our client was not in L.A. when anonymous ‘Doe #1’ claims he interacted with John Travolta.”
“That fact is easily provable since John Travolta was on the East Coast working on a movie on the date that anonymous ‘Doe #1’ claims he interacted with our client. After we were able to establish that anonymous ‘Doe #1’s’ claims were totally absurd, the same attorney has now filed a claim on behalf of another plaintiff, whom he identified as ‘Doe #2.’ Significantly, although the same attorney made the fabricated claim for Doe #1, there was never any claim made by anonymous Doe #2 before he filed his specious lawsuit.”
“Before the attorney for the two anonymous plaintiffs filed the claim on behalf of the second person who refuses to disclose his identity although required to do so, it is obvious that he checked media reports that my client was in Atlanta working on a movie. However, the claim by Doe #2 is just as fabricated as the claim by Doe #1. Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims.”
The John Doe #2 then filed a motion to dismiss his case, announcing that he’d fired Okorocha and replaced him with attorney Gloria Allred. But there is no evidence that the Doe #2 ever filed a new lawsuit against Travolta.
In April 2013, Gawker obtained a document that they alleged showed insurance claims made against Travolta’s production company, Constellation Productions Inc., showing that six people had accused the actor of sexual assault.
Gawker reported that: “According to the document, a ‘loss-run’ report from Chartis Insurance (a name briefly used by an AIG subsidiary in an abandoned rebranding attempt), one small payment was made over a claim from a previously unreported accuser, a Chicago-area sports therapist who worked with the U.S. women's soccer team in 2008. The other line-item payout, $80,750, was allotted to the John Doe masseur case [in California].”
Then, according to the Huffington Post, “In an email, lawyers for John Travolta told the Huffington Post that the document obtained by Gawker does not reflect that any settlement payments were paid out, but rather it reflects cost and expenses incurred, which they say is consistent with legal fees being paid in connection with the defense of lawsuits that were filed. Additionally, Travolta’s legal team would not comment on the authenticity of the document obtained by Gawker.”
