Actor Scott Baio, appearing Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” vehemently denied his former “Charles in Charge” castmate Nicole Eggert’s accusations that he repeatedly sexually abused her when she was a teenager.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a sitcom set,” Baio told anchor Amy Robach, “but on any given day, on every day and especially [on] ‘Charles in Charge’ — which was like a picnic every day, it’s one of my favorite jobs I’ve ever done — there’s teachers, parents, family, crew, producers, my dad. How any of this could’ve happened is absolutely impossible.”
The controversy began Saturday morning, when Eggert, 46, tweeted that she and Baio, 57, had sex “in his garage at his house when I was a minor.”
On NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today” Tuesday, Eggert said that Baio had sexually harassed and abused her throughout her years on the 1980s CBS sitcom, which began when she was 14. He started to profess his love to Eggert then, she said, alleging that the abuse began before her 15th birthday, when they were in his garage and he “reached over and penetrated me with his finger.
Eggert added that the abuse was “probably once a week,” and that Baio groped and fondled her. She alleged that other cast members saw him try to kiss her on set.
“It wasn’t a hold-me-down, rape-me situation,” she said, “but I was 17. . . . I wasn’t ready to tell my story. For me, it was always protecting the show.”
On “Good Morning America” Wednesday, Baio admitted to Robach that they had one particular sexual encounter, which Eggert initiated (while Eggert had told Kelly the previous day that she never initiated anything). But he denied that the additional incident in the garage ever occurred.
“I have no idea what that means,” he said, nervously laughing. “No idea. You can’t just keep making up different things.”
Eggert previously mentioned having sex with Baio in a 2013 interview on Nik Richie Radio, during which she had indicated that she was 18 when the incident occurred.
(Excerpt) Read More in: The Washington Post