So, Al Gore, former Vice-President of these United States, winner of an Academy Award, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and currently an activist working against global warming, has been accused of being a crazed sex-poodle by a massage therapist in Portland, Oregon.
My, oh, my.
The agreed-upon portion of the story is that Al was on a speaking tour in Portland in 2006, and while here, had an outcall massage in his hotel room.
Past that, accounts vary.
Past that, accounts vary.
The LMT offers that he was all over her like white on rice, and while he didn't do anything that seemed criminal enough to get the police to bring charges, he was Al the Horny Octopus. Got some, ah -- semen on her pants to prove it, which she kept, in case, you know, DNA was ever needed.
Gore doesn't remember it that way. He recalls a pleasant massage, nothing past that.
Several things pop up, so to speak, in my thoughts about this. The therapist offers that she didn't come forward right away because he was worried about her reputation. I can see that.
She got a lawyer and eventually did get around to talking about it some months later, but when the police asked her to drop by and tell them the tale, she didn't go.
Gets a little iffier. You start smelling civil suit instead of criminal charge in the air ...
Gets a little iffier. You start smelling civil suit instead of criminal charge in the air ...
The National Enquirer, that bastion of fair and unbiased honest journalism, reported the story recently, and the shit hit the fan.
Oh, Al. And after forty years, splitting from Tipper, too.
There are some niggling details that bother me:
There are some niggling details that bother me:
The therapist's stunned amazement that man would hit on her seems a little bit disingenuous: It never occurred to her that going to a hotel room for a late-evening hands-on might result in a pass? Really? Never happened before, and she hadn't come up with any way of dealing with it?
The details were such that when she did get to the cop shop, it ran seventy-three pages?
It's he-said-she-said, and you pick which one you want to believe, if either, though there is something buried in one of the accounts I happened across that causes the old eyebrow lift: The bill, which Al apparently paid, for this session was reportedly $540.
Um. For that kind of money, a happy ending might not be a completely unreasonable expectation ...
Did he hit on her? You know how men are -- I can see that possibility.
Is this a shakedown? Is that reported wants-a-million-to-talk-to-the-media story true? I can see that one, too.
Tsk, tsk. How tawdry it all is ...
Is this a shakedown? Is that reported wants-a-million-to-talk-to-the-media story true? I can see that one, too.
Tsk, tsk. How tawdry it all is ...
(Breaking News: We have art -- the cover of the next issue of The National Enquirer)
Agreed. It's unfortunately quite common for celebrities and prominent figures to believe they are above reproach.
ReplyDeleteI read the allegation. I tried to picture a naked, sweaty Al Gore writhing on a massage table and moaning "Release my second chakra! Release my second chakra!" - but I just couldn't. I think that's the brain's way of protecting itself.
ReplyDeleteIf that bill for one session was *actually* $540, then you're right: we might have something to go on. Otherwise, masseurs 'n' masseuses charge the devil out of their serene results. Once I went to Two Bunch Palms, a spa outside Palm Springs, with an author in tow and a Bantam credit card in my wallet. Several massage sessions, nothing even approaching hanky-panky. I nearly puked when I signed the bill, *on behalf of my company*! When the only people who can really afford this kind of treatment are pro athletes, also using the corporate credit card, you start to wonder.
ReplyDeleteHmm. You never took me to Palm Springs ...
ReplyDelete