Molly Shannon has detailed a truly bizarre encounter she once had with the late Gary Coleman in her new memoir, Hello, Molly!
The Saturday Night Live alum appeared on a recent episode of The Howard Stern Show and described how she met the Diff’ret Strokes star and how things quickly took an unexpected turn. Shannon stated that in 1987 she signed a deal with Mark Randall, a talent manager who also represented Coleman. She went to meet up with the pair for tea at the Plaza Hotel where Coleman eventually invited her to his Presidential Suite.
Molly Shannon Says She Was Sexually Harassed By Gary Coleman: ‘He Was Relentless!’
Everything seemed normal at first but once the manager left the room, Coleman’s pursuit of Shannon became more aggressive. According to Shannon, Coleman instructed Shannon to sit on the bed and began tickling her, saying she thought he was “very sweet” initially.
The Superstar! Actress revealed that her first impression of Coleman was innocent, stating, “I was a virgin so I wasn’t even thinking about that. He held my hand and I was like, ‘He’s so cute!”.
The actress continued, “Then, he was like trying to kiss me and get on top and I was like, ‘No, Gary. Stop.’ So, I push him off. Then, I would get off the bed. Then, he would bounce on the bed.”
Shannon described the actor’s behavior as “relentless” because of his refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer. She stated that Coleman repeated a pattern of odd behavior where he would jump on the bed only for her to push him away. “Jump, jump, jump. And wrap himself around me. Then, I would fling him off. And then he got on top of me.”
“Then, I go lock myself in the bathroom and then he sticks his hands under the door. And he’s like, ‘I can see you,” she added.
Although she confessed to having never felt ‘physically threatened’ by Coleman due to his 4-foot-8 frame, Shannon was rightfully shaken up by the experience. After she was able to escape Coleman by sprinting out of the room, she called her manager and told he needed to do a better job of watching him.
Looking back on the alleged incident, Shannon told Stern, “I wish I could have stood up for myself more”.
While Gary Coleman died on May 28, 2010 after a lifetime of health issues, Shannon said that she has told the tale of how they met many times when he was alive and he never refuted her claims.
