Woman Says George HW Bush Groped Her When She Was 16 During Photo Op
Another woman has claimed former President George H.W. Bush inappropriately grabbed her during a photo op. She was 16-years-old at the time, Time magazine reported Monday.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Bush did not deny the claims, telling Time only that “George Bush simply does not have it in his heart to knowingly cause anyone harm or distress, and he again apologizes to anyone he may have offended during a photo op.”
Roslyn Corrigan told Time that she requested to leave her classes at The Woodlands High School early to see the former President at a gathering of former intelligence officials, including her father, and their families. She posed for a picture at the event with Bush and her mother.
“As soon as the picture was being snapped on the one-two-three he dropped his hands from my waist down to my buttocks and gave it a nice, ripe squeeze, which would account for the fact that in the photograph my mouth is hanging wide open,” she told Time, recalling Bush’s actions. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, what just happened?’”
“My initial action was absolute horror. I was really, really confused,” Corrigan said. “The first thing I did was look at my mom and, while he was still standing there, I didn’t say anything. What does a teenager say to the ex-President of the United States? Like, ‘Hey dude, you shouldn’t have touched me like that?’”
Seven people confirmed to Time, the publication said, that Corrigan had told them about Bush’s groping before the recent wave of revelations about sexual assault.
Corrigan’s mother, Sari Young, described her daughter’s reaction to Bush’s groping following the photo.
“When he left, my daughter Rozi said, ‘He grabbed me on the rear end.’ And I said, ‘What, what?’” Young recalled to Time. “And she said, ‘Yes, he grabbed me when they were taking the picture. He grabbed me on my butt.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, are you kidding me?’
Time noted Corrigan is the sixth woman to claim that Bush grabbed them during a photo op. Bush’s spokesperson, Jim McGrath, has not denied the claims, instead acknowledging in one statement that on occasion that Bush “patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner.”
In that statement, McGrath attributed Bush’s groping to the fact that he “has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures.”
When Bush allegedly groped Corrigan, 14 years ago, that was not the case.
