Entertainment

The Disturbing Details Behind Ryan Seacrest’s Alleged Abuse

(Photo credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

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Ryan Seacrest has repeatedly denied the sexual assault allegations against him and an investigation by E! News cleared him of any wrongdoing, but that’s not stopping his accuser from speaking out.

Seacrest’s former personal stylist Suzie Hardy detailed her allegations against the TV personality in a letter written in November, which was recently provided to Variety, in which she claims he slapped her butt so hard it left a welt, rubbed his erect penis against her while wearing nothing but underwear and grabbed her vagina on multiple occasions.

(Photo credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Hardy began working as Seacrest’s stylist in 2006 and allegedly endured years of abuse before her employment was terminated in 2013 after detailing her allegations to human resources.

According to Hardy, Seacrest’s abuse began with things as little as unwanted hugs, but escalated into more aggressive and abusive behavior. In the November letter Hardy details one incident in which Seacrest slapped her butt so hard it left a welt, which she took a picture of later that day.

In another incident she was dressing Seacrest at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood ahead of the Academy Awards when he threw her on the bed, climbed on top of her, wearing only a pair of underwear, and rubbed his erect penis on her.

However in what Hardy describes as the “most egregious offense,” Seacrest asked intimate questions about a man she was dating at the time while she was tying his tie. When she refused to answer him, Hardy claims Seacrest reached down and grabbed her vagina. Hardy retreated to the bathroom in tears where she claims a production assistant approached her and offered to walk her to human resources, but warned that she would likely be fired.

Hardy confided in several fellow employees during her years at E! who corroborated most of her claims.

“I didn’t know how to deal with it,” she told Variety. “I really didn’t. I was battling finally being in a decent financial position to breathe and be a mom, that I didn’t have to be freaking out all the time, and then dealing with this infantile celebrity person who was testing me on every level and manipulating me and knew that I was in a vulnerable position.”

In the November letter from Hardy’s attorney, she asked Seacrest and E! to “come up with a plan to address the treatment of all women at the networks and to take responsibility for the wrongful treatment” of Hardy or “more formal action” would follow. Seacrest went public with the allegations against him, E! conducted an investigation and Seacrest was then in the clear.

“Total exasperation was my definite feeling when I heard about it,” Hardy told Variety of the investigation which she was interviewed for three times. “I felt like by the third interview, it was obvious the investigator was whitewashing it for Seacrest’s side.”

(Photo credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Hardy, the investigator failed to contact four witnesses she had referred him to who could corroborate elements of her story.

“It is upsetting to us that Variety is electing to run a ‘story’ about untrue allegations that were made against my client, after they were told that the accuser threatened to make those false claims against him unless he paid her $15 million,” Seacrest’s attorney, Andrew Baum, told Variety. “At that time, the claimant threatened to issue a demonstrably false press statement unless she was paid. Instead, my client proactively and publicly denied the claims and agreed to fully cooperate with E!’s investigation about the matter.”