A California radio host came forward on Thursday with allegations that Sen. Al Franken groped and kissed her a decade ago without her consent.
Leeann Tweeden, the morning news anchor for KABC in Los Angeles and former model, says that she met Franken during a December 2006 USO tour.
Tweeden describes how the Minnesota Democrat repeatedly harassed her during the tour in a first-person piece published by KABC.
The former funnyman, who was elected to the Senate in 2008, wrote a script involving the two kissing that he wanted them to perform during the tour.
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Tweeden, 44, says that the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian made her increasingly uncomfortable after forcing her to rehearse the scene.
“He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss,” she wrote.
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“We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”
Tweeden, a Virginia native who has modeled for FHM, Maxim and Playboy and hosted NBC’s “Poker After Dark,” said she felt “ felt disgusted and violated.”
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“All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth,” she wrote.
Also on the trip were country artists Darryl Worley, Mark Wills, Keni Thomas, and cheerleaders from the Dallas Cowboys, according to Tweeden.
Franken cited the 2006 USO trip in his most recent book, “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate,” as the deciding factor in making the leap from comedy to the Capitol.
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