Jordana Grolnick, a New York City actress from Colorado, has become the second woman after Heather Lind to come out with allegations of sexual misconduct against former President George H.W. Bush.
Grolnick accused the 93-year-old former president of telling her a sexually-suggestive joke before squeezing her but while they took a photograph together.
According to Deadspin, Grolnick said the incident took place last year while she was part of a production in Maine. The allegations come a day after Turn: Washington’s Spies actress Heather Lind accused the 41st President of similar misconduct.
Lind also alleged that President Bush grabbed her by the buttocks during a photo-op.
via Deadspin:
In August 2016, Grolnick was working at a Maine production of Hunchback of Notre Dame. The former president, who summers in nearby Kennebunkport and frequents this theater, caught a performance. He came backstage during an intermission, she says, and she and the rest of the cast gathered for a photo with him. Grolnick now says that other actors had told her before the photo that Bush had a reputation for fondling during photo ops, but she didn’t take it seriously.
“We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” she says. “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!’”
Grolnick says others in the room “laughed politely and out of discomfort.” Former first lady Barbara Bush was among those nearby. “[She] said something along the lines of, ‘He’s going to get himself put into jail!’ to which we laughed harder,” Grolnick says.
A representative for former President Bush released a statement about the allegations on the President’s behalf:
“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. 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. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”
Grolnick has been a professional theatre actress since graduating from the University of Michigan in 2015.
