Al Gore behaved like 'crazed sex poodle' with masseuse

A masseuse has accused Al Gore, the former US vice president, of sexually assaulting her at an Oregon hotel during a global warming lecture tour in 2006.

Al Gore accused of sexual harassment
Al Gore accused of behaving like 'crazed sex poodle' Credit: Photo: AP

The unidentified 54-year-old woman gave police a detailed account of her claims that Mr Gore groped and kissed her in an aggressive attempt to have sex during a night-time appointment in his suite.

However, the police concluded that there was insufficient evidence to press charges.

The woman, who recalled telling Mr Gore he was behaving like a "crazed sex poodle", claims he pinned her to his bed and forcibly French kissed her.

Mr Gore, 62, was staying in an expensive hotel in Portland in October while delivering a speech about climate change in October of that year had registered as "Mr Stone".

He allegedly asked the hotel to call the massage therapist to his suite, complaining to her during the $540 (£360) session about the physical rigours of his heavy travel schedule.

The accuser, after contacting police in late 2006, subsequently cancelled three interviews with detectives and said she did not want the investigation to proceed.

However, she contacted them again in January 2009 and gave a detailed statement.

A spokesman for Mr Gore, who announced his separation from his wife, Tipper, on June 1, said he had no comment.

In her statement, made public by police, the masseuse said she arrived at the St Lucia Hotel's VIP suite to find Mr Gore drinking beer.

He greeted her with a hug and told her to call him "Al", she told police.

However, the nearly three-hour therapy session soon went sour after Mr Gore angrily insisted she massage him around his groin and then pounced on her, she claimed.

"He pleaded, groped me, grabbed me, engulfed me in embrace, tongue kissed me, massaged me, grabbed my breasts," she told detectives.

She said she feared he might rape her as he "flipped me flat on my back and threw his whole body face down over atop me, pinning me down and outweighing me by quite a bit".

The woman said Mr Gore provided a "dramatic display of violent temper as well as [an] extremely dictatorial, commanding attitude besides his smiley, global warning concern persona".

Having squirmed out of his grasp, she fled his suite. She claimed she later found stains on the front of her trousers and kept them uncleaned as evidence, believing they were his body fluids.

The masseuse told police she had not immediately called them as "I feared being made into a public spectacle and my reputation being destroyed".

She also insisted she was not interesting in making money from the case as she did not want to be "labelled a gold digger".

However, having decided against suing Mr Gore, she reportedly sold her story to the National Enquirer magazine for $1 million (£667,000).