One of the women who came forward against actor Morgan Freeman is pushing back against CNN’s explosive report that he had sexually harassed up to eight women.
Chicago WGN-TV’s Tyra Martin is saying that she has issues with the way her comments were presented in CNN‘s report.
“Hey, still getting a lot of nasty messages from people who think I AM one of the accusers,” she told TMZ. “I’m not, never was. CNN totally misrepresented the video and took my remarks out of context.”
According to CNN’s report, eight women said Freeman created an uncomfortable work environment with frequent sexual comments and unwanted touching.
Martin, who had interviewed Freeman multiple times, described the actor as casually inappropriate with her — enough for her to become accustomed to his bawdy comments. In one specific interaction, Freeman commented inappropriately about her skirt.
“When I stood up, I pulled my skirt part of my dress down and he did say, ‘Oh, don’t pull it down now,’“ Martin recalled.
Martin doesn’t change her testimony, but she does take issue with being named as one of his accusers. Instead, she saw many of his comments, though inappropriate, to be said in jest.
“That wasn’t my experience of Morgan Freeman,” she clarified her comments on Friday during WGN-TVs morning show. “The experiences were always fun for me.”
The 80-year-old actor has released two statements denying the allegations. In his most recent statement, Freeman says that he never sexually assaulted anyone.
“I am devastated that 80 years of my life is at risk of being undermined, in the blink of an eye, by Thursday’s media reports,” the actor said in the most recent statement. “All victims of assault and harassment deserve to be heard. And we need to listen to them. But it is not right to equate horrific incidents of sexual assault with misplaced compliments or humor.”
