During an interview Friday with “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts, radio news anchor Leeann Velez Tweeden revealed more details regarding her experiences with then-comedian Al Franken during a USO tour in 2006, three years before he became a Democrat senator.
“Most people are just hearing about the forced kiss and the picture at the end, but it was the humiliation through the two weeks of the tour that people don’t hear about,” she said, referring to allegations she revealed a day earlier that Franken had kissed and groped her without her consent.
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Tweeden likewise provided photographic evidence of the groping in an op-ed for KABC in Los Angeles, where she works as a morning anchor.
“It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one,” she wrote in the op-ed. “I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?”
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Franken’s behavior during the tour itself was just as inappropriate, she explained Friday. Besides allegedly forcing a kiss on her, which she responded to by warning him against ever pulling such a stunt again, Tweeden also claimed she suffered constant harassment throughout the tour.
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“There were little jabs, there were little comments,” she said. “I separated myself as much as I could from that tour, from him. I was never alone with him again.”
“But you know, we’d be doing autograph sessions and I’d have to sit next to him because we were the co-emcees and I would literally sit with my back sort of towards him and I’d see a picture of mine be pulled away out of the corner of my eye and he would draw devil horns on me and the devil tail and push it back into my pile,” she added.
She recalled as well that Franken had multiple opportunities to apologize after the 2006 incident but never did.
She further criticized the initial apology he issued Thursday, claiming it seemed insincere.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, a two-sentence apology,'” she said. “I accepted that as well because you know politicians really of have to get ahead of the game.”
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“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” Franken had initially said in a statement. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”
He later released a more comprehensive apology on social media:
“The second one was definitely heartfelt and I do accept it,” Tweeden said. “I think he realized how people felt about it — now it’s a different time. 2006 is not 2017.”
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She argued, though, that she doesn’t necessarily believe he needs to resign from office.
“I’m not calling for him to step down,” she said. “That was never my intention.”
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