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Seagal is a strange guy. Master black belt in aikido, practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, vegetarian and animalistic, volunteer sheriff in Louisiana, guitarist in his own blues band, and star of a reality show named after him.
But at the same time he is a decadent movie star, troubled actor behind the scenes and avowed admirer of Vladimir Putin. In addition, he is accused by numerous women of having violated them psychologically and sexually, without taking charge of their accusations so far.
That is why it should not be surprising that last Tuesday he appeared in the presidential palace of Miraflores, in Caracas, to give a samurai sword to Nicolás Maduro.
Obviously overweight with his popular ponytail, Seagal came to the country as a special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry. And it works as a kind of cultural ambassador for Putin, who in November 2016 granted him Russian nationality. Among other things, Putin and Steven Seagal share a fondness for martial arts and a taste for showing off their physical gifts.
To the American actor, who in a few days he will be 70 years old, the fascination for these sports comes from the adolescence, when it began with karate. But it was at the age of 17 that he moved to Japan, taking advantage of his father’s work in the military. And there he would fully develop his training.
He even married the Japanese Miyako Fujitani, another aikido teacher, and they founded their own dojo (the space for the practice and teaching of martial arts).
Brief stardom
It was in the 80s when Seagal began to flirt with the cinema, first as a choreographer of action scenes, and then as an actor. Newly in the 90s his first roles stellar. For example, the two deliveries of Maximum alert (in 1992 and 1995) and The last patriot (1998).
Seagal was characterized by a cold and sober style on screen, without the spectacular Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude Van Damme. And although he enjoyed fame and figuration, it did not last long. By the 2000s the parameters of the industry changed and Steven Seagal had to settle for roles for television or video-on-demand.
Instead, his controversial attitude was more noticeable on the set. Sean Connery, for example, said that Seagal broke his wrist while training him for the film. Never say never, 1983. In another episode, John Leguizamo revealed that he was assaulted by the actor, who then threw a tantrum over a scene that did not match his ego. And several members of the cast of Saturday Night Live stated that his stint as a guest on the show in 1991 was extremely unpleasant.
Signs
Even more serious have been the aforementioned complaints of abuse. In 1998, actress Jenny McCarthy confessed to a magazine that Seagal wanted to force her to undress in a casting, despite the fact that the script they were working on did not require it that way. The accusation was practically ignored at the time.
Then more allegations appeared: In 2017, Julianna Margulies said that Seagal summoned her to her hotel room and intimidated her with a gun. A year later, actress Regina Simons reported him for rape when she was just 18 years old, in the early 90s.
Finally, Faviola Dadis joined the complaints by pointing out that the actor touched her when she was a minor.
Busier in his strange diplomatic work on behalf of Putin, Steven Seagal has given very few interviews and has refused to respond to the serious accusations against him. In 2018, when he was invited to the show Newsnight from BBC, the actor was confronted by the presenter Kirsty Wars, who asked him to release the complaints. The only thing that did Seagal was taking off the headset and leaving the interview.
