Actor Kevin Sorbo alleges that he was sexually harassed in the 1980s by the late Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace while he was working as a model.
Sorbo, 59, who was speaking on Adam Carolla’s podcast, said that he almost worked with Versace in 1984, before finding fame in the lead in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in the 1990s.
‘I’ve got my sexual harassment story,’ Sorbo told Carolla, as the conversation turned to the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the plethora of women who have accursed the disgraced producer of assault and harassment.
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Kevin Sorbo (left) alleges that Gianna Versace (right) had sexually harassed him in the 1980s while discussing a modeling opportunity for his brand
Sorbo, now 59-years-old, found fame in the 1990s playing the lead in the television series ‘Hercules: The Legendary Journey’
Sorbo said of how he first encountered Versace: ‘He wanted to meet me because of my height. At 6-foot, 3-inches, he wanted me to do fashion shows with these 6-foot tall women.’
The actor says he was invited to several dinner parties, starting with one with various stars like Sophia Loren, opera star Luciano Pavarotti and Richard Gere. However, he says, as he got invited to several more parties, each had fewer attendees.
Until finally, the party was for two, he and Versace alone.
The actor says during the final dinner Versace said he could do commercials for his fashion brand.
‘All of a sudden, his hand goes up my leg,’ says Sorbo.
‘Dude, you know I’m straight?’ he told Versace.
‘This is why I like you. You’re not a girly man. You are a man’s man,’ Versace told Sorbo, according to his recollection.
Sorbo was on Adam Carolla’s (right) podcast where he made the allegations about the late Italian designer
‘In life, you must f*** everything. You must do the dog, and the cat, and the boy, and the girl,’ the actor recalls Versace telling him.
Sorbo says he explained to Versace they were leading different lifestyles, with Versace responding he wanted to ‘build a bridge’ between them.
‘The bridge was never built, and I never got the campaign,’ Sorbo says. ‘I got four free dinners.’
Sorbo later told The Hollywood Reporter that despite their early encounter he remained friends with Versace.
‘He booked me for his fashion shows but I never got his campaign, but I knew the game, just like I know the game of Hollywood,’ Sorbo told THR. ‘Casting couches have always been around. I don’t play that game, nor do I care to.’
Sorbo was speaking on Carolla’s podcast to promote faith-based film Let There Be Light, which opens Friday. Fox News personality Sean Hannity will be trying his hand at filmmaking as the movie’s executive producer.
Versace was one of the world’s leading fashion designers before he was shot dead at his Miami Beach mansion in 1997. His murder will be explored next year in two installments of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.