This article previously appeared on EightiesKids.com
John Leguizamo
When John Leguizamo worked with Seagal on 1996’s Executive Decision, Seagal declared to his co-stars on the first day of rehearsal, “I’m in command. What I say is law.” When Leguizamo laughed at this, he says that Seagal “taekwondo’d my a** against a brick wall… knocked all the air out of me. I was like [gasping], ‘why?'” 2022 saw Leguizamo star in dark comedy horror film The Menu, in which he portrays an arrogant, washed-up movie star. Leguizamo has revealed that he based his performance on Seagal, saying: “He’s kind of a horrible human.”
Juliana Margulies
Before finding fame on TV’s ER, Julianna Margulies was up for a role in 1991’s Out for Justice, and was told that Seagal wanted to meet her to rehearse a scene – at 10pm in his hotel room. Margulies recalls, “I walked in and I sat down and I jumped right back up because there was something very uncomfortable and hard in the couch… He laughed and he said, ‘Oh, sorry, that must have been my gun.'” After being cast, Margulies asked the producers to ensure she would never be left alone with Seagal again.
Jean-Claude Van Damme
There was beef between Steven Seagal and his fellow martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme as far back as the late 80s, exacerbated when Seagal disputed Van Damme’s karate champion status in an Arsenio Hall interview. Things finally reached a head at a party at Sylvester Stallone’s house in 1997. Stallone recalls, “Van Damme was tired of Seagal claiming he could kick his a** so he offered Seagal outside into my back yard. Seagal made his excuses and left. But Van Damme, who was berserk, tracked him down at a nightclub… Van Damme was too strong. Seagal wanted none of it.”
Jenny McCarthy
When model, actress and TV personality Jenny McCarthy auditioned for a role in 1995’s Under Siege 2, she found herself alone in a room with Seagal, who told her, “this part has nudity in it and I can’t really tell what your body looks like in that dress that you’re wearing.” When McCarthy said she’d been told the role did not involve nudity, Seagal replied, “well, there is off-camera nudity.” Outraged, McCarthy told Seagal, “Go buy my Playboy video,” and got up to leave. Seagal followed her and threatened, “Don’t tell anybody or else.”
Liam Neeson
Taken star Liam Neeson told Jimmy Kimmel in 2017, he “was particularly annoyed [when] some journalist told me at a junket… ‘what do you think of Steven Seagal saying you don’t know how to punch?’ I was like, ‘what?'” Kimmel was quick to point out that Neeson had himself boxed in his youth, and while the actor was modest about this, he insisted, “I know how to punch.” Still, as humble as he might be, Neeson was not above taking some swipes at Seagal’s appearance: “I want to know who dyes his hair. Stevie Wonder?”
Charlize Theron
Thanks to her action-heavy roles in the likes of Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard, Charlize Theron is well-versed in screen fighting. In 2020, the Oscar-winning actress hit Seagal where it hurts by publicly questioning his martial arts ability. Remarking on videos of Seagal giving public displays of aikido, Theron said, “you always come across that old Seagal video of him ‘fighting’ in Japan, but he really isn’t… He’s just incredibly overweight and pushing people.” Theron said she has “no problem talking s**t about [Seagal]… because he’s not very nice to women.”
George Foreman
Over the years, Seagal has made many bold claims about being able to beat literally anyone in a fight. Naturally, plenty of professional fighters have taken exception to this – including George Foreman, the famed heavyweight boxer who in 1995 became the oldest man to ever hold the title of world heavyweight champion (at 46). In 2017, Foreman issued a challenge to Seagal on Twitter: “Steven Seagal, I challenge you One on one, I use boxing you can use whatever. 10 rounds in Vegas.” No such fight ever happened; Seagal, perhaps coincidentally, had not long since relocated to Russia.
Under Siege director Andrew Davis
Director Andrew Davis called the shots on Seagal’s breakthrough movie Above the Law, and his biggest blockbuster, Under Siege. However, Davis was initially reluctant to make the latter film for one simple reason: he didn’t want to work with Seagal again. Davis only agreed to make Under Siege once Warner Bros boss Terry Semel explained that Seagal would be in less than an hour of the movie. The success of Under Siege helped Davis land the director’s chair on The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, so Davis says “it was worth it.” He’s never worked with Seagal again.
Pamela Anderson
Under Siege co-stars Erika Eleniak, best known at the time for her role on TV’s Baywatch. Another Baywatch actress considered for Eleniak’s role was Pamela Anderson, who says she came in to audition only to be propositioned by Seagal. Anderson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, “I remember him saying to me, ‘If you don’t do it, then that girl across the hall will do it, and she’ll get the job,’” Anderson recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, good, goodbye.”
Gary Busey
Under Siege co-star Gary Busey said of Seagal in 2014, “Oh boy. He’s insecure. This guy went overboard with the control master. And Erika Eleniak – the little girl who was in it – I had her under my wing. He was looking to add in a love scene so he could really get down and dirty.” No such love scene was shot – and despite the remarks of both Busey and Pamela Anderson, Eleniak has denied that Seagal ever behaved inappropriately toward her.
Stuntman Gene LeBell
Seasoned wrestler, boxer and martial artist Gene LeBell worked alongside Steven Seagal as a stunt coordinator on 1991’s Out for Justice. When Seagal bragged that his aikido training made him immune to being choked unconscious, LeBell put this to the test. Accounts vary on what happened, but legend has it that LeBell not only choked him out, but that Seagal also lost control of his bowels and fully soiled himself. LeBell (who passed away in 2022) downplayed this story, but once remarked, “Sometimes Steven has a tendency to cheese off the wrong people, and you can get hurt doing that.”
Ronda Rousey
Naturally, the story that Seagal filled his underwear after being choked out by LeBell soon spread far and wide. Seagal vehemently denied it, declaring LeBell “a pathological liar.” These remarks didn’t go over well with one famous protege of LeBell: the UFC champion fighter, WWE wrestler and actress Ronda Rousey. In response to Seagal denying that he was choked out by LeBell, Rousey remarked, “Well, would you ever admit it? Obviously, the guy is a liar… If he says anything bad about Gene to my face, I would have to make him c**p his pants a second time.”
Katherine Heigl
Years before starring in TV’s Grey’s Anatomy and the hit comedy Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl portrayed the niece of Seagal’s Casey Ryback in Under Siege 2, when she was just 16. Heigl reflected in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, “[Seagal] said, ‘You know Katie, I got girlfriends your age.’ And I said, ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ And he said, ‘They don’t seem to mind.’ And I said, ‘Mom!'” As if this wasn’t bad enough, a photograph taken on a red carpet event for Under Siege 2 clearly shows Seagal with his hand placed on Heigl’s chest.
Rae Dawn Chong
Rae Dawn Chong was also preyed upon by Seagal. The Commando actress was once sent by her agent for a 9:30pm ‘audition’ at the actor’s hotel room; Seagal answered the door in a robe, and Chong refused to enter the room. “I was shocked at the time… I stood outside the open door mortified that I was told to go to this meeting.” Chong, who fired her agent after this meeting (“My heart broke because my agency had obviously pimped me out to this creep”), says that for years afterwards Seagal left explicit messages on her answering machine.
Lisa Guerrero
Early in her career, TV journalist Lisa Guerrero pursued acting. Under consideration for a role in Seagal’s 1997 movie Fire Down Below, and also found herself ‘auditioning’ for a robe-clad Seagal. Guerrero was soon asked back for a “private rehearsal” at Seagal’s home; when she refused, Guerrero was taken out of the running for the film’s female lead and given a one-day bit part. On set, Seagal propositioned her again, and she spurred his advances. In the end, Guerrero says “my role was completely cut out of the film. I believe it was because I declined his offers three times.”
Portia de Rossi
Portia de Rossi, the now retired actress who came to fame in the 90s on TV’s Ally McBeal, also had an unpleasant experience whilst auditioning for a role in a Seagal film. De Rossi wrote on Twitter in 2017 (at the peak of the #MeToo movement): ‘My final audition for a Steven Segal (sic) movie took place in his office. He told me how important it was to have chemistry off-screen as he sat me down and unzipped his leather pants. I ran out and called my agent. Unfazed, she replied, “well, I didn’t know if he was your type.””
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba appeared alongside Seagal in his last major Hollywood production, 2010’s Machete, and had a tense moment when he took offence over what most would consider an innocuous remark. Alba recalls, “I kind of called him an actor and he kind of got mad at me and corrected me and said he was an officer of the law.” (At the time, Seagal was a reserve deputy sheriff in Louisina, chronicled in his reality TV show Steven Seagal: Lawman.) Alba then said, “‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’”
Sharon Stone
Several years before she rose to stardom with Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone was an up-and-coming actress who appeared alongside Seagal, playing his wife in his breakthrough movie Above the Law. While Stone has not spoken in any detail of what transpired between them, the actress has made it clear she was not enamoured with her co-star. In a 1999 interview, which saw the actress speak critically of many prominent figures in Hollywood, Stone flatly declared that Seagal was not worth “the ink it would take to write about him.”
DMX
The late rapper and actor DMX appeared in a number of action movies in the early 2000s, including Exit Wounds, which was one of Steven Seagal’s last major studio movies. Again, details on what went on between the two men are thin on the ground, but DMX left no illusions about how he felt about his co-star. Not long after Exit Wounds hit screens in 2001, DMX was quoted as stating, “Steven Seagal is a f***ing f***head. With spray-on hair.”
Sean Connery
While preparing to star in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery took a martial arts class with Steven Seagal that he would come to regret. “I got a little cocky because I thought I knew what I was doing… I got a bit flash and [raised a hand],” Connery remembered. “And he broke my wrist.” Connery didn’t even realise his wrist was broken, and his injury was left undiagnosed until 1996. Because of Seagal, Connery subsequently struggled with simple tasks such as reaching into his own pocket.
Sylvester Stallone
Seagal once offended Rocky star Sylvester Stallone by saying he had a low opinion of him, and would not work with him. “Steven Seagal said that he ‘didn’t associate with that kind of element’ – meaning me,” Stallone has recalled. “So I slammed him up against a wall.” Stallone and Seagal patched things up afterwards, as Stallone summarized: “At that time, our testosterone was running full bore. He was full of his height, and I was full of myself.”
Richard Gere
Famously, Steven Seagal practises Buddhism. When the head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, Penor Rinpoche, declared in 1997 that Seagal was a “tulku” – a sacred reincarnation of a holy teacher – other celebrity Buddhists waded in to the discussion. “If someone’s a tulku, that’s great,” remarked Hollywood’s best-known Buddhist Richard Gere, with more than a hint of scepticism. “But no one knows if that’s true.”
Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida
Seagal claims he helped to train UFC fighters Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida, and bragged on Jimmy Kimmel Live: “I show them, you know, a lot. Not everything I know.” However, a video from Brazil later surfaced in which one of Silva’s teammates impersonates Seagal and says, “Anderson, I find a punch for you to do in the fight,” followed by the Aikido Hadouken move. The teammates then fall about with laughter. Silva has since stated that Seagal didn’t teach him or train him, but is a “good person.”
Stephen Tobolowsky
In The Glimmer Man, Seagal’s cop shoots dead a serial killer, played by Stephen Tobolowsky. However, Tobolowsky has said that Seagal had a “spiritual awakening” during filming and decided he shouldn’t kill people on-screen any more. Tobolowsky persuaded Seagal to change his mind and complete the death scene – but later, he received a call from producers to say that Seagal kept ad-libbing in later scenes and saying how he never killed Tobolowsky’s character. As a result, Tobolowsky had to dub in a line suggesting that his character’s violent on-screen wound wasn’t fatal – an experience he described as “horrible.”
Kelly LeBrock
Model and actress Kelly LeBrock, an 80s icon for her roles in The Woman in Red and Weird Science, was Seagal’s second wife from 1987 to 1996. She has since said she feels “sorry” for the star: “I think that he’s just a very sad person and he is what I would call a tragedy of Hollywood.” LeBrock went on to remark, “I believe he was very bullied as a child, very sickly, very weak and I guess people who are treated that way as children end up becoming lost as they age. I wish him all the best.”
Chuck Norris
Although he admitted having only “met him once”, Chuck Norris is no fan of Steven Seagal, as he revealed in a 1993 interview with Dick Cavett. As they discussed martial artists, Cavett mentioned an occasion when he met a top martial artist who threatened to kill him. Norris responded, “Was it Steven Seagal?” Cavett laughed and said no, but then commented: “That menacing, really rotten-kinda-guy image that [Seagal] projects, is it largely acting?” Norris replied, “No… He carries a gun with him everywhere he goes.”
Keenan Ivory Wayans
Stephen Tobolowsky was not the only actor that Seagal rubbed the wrong way on the set of 1996’s The Glimmer Man. Tobolowsky has recalled how their co-star Keenan Ivory Wayans witnessed Seagal’s antics and commented: “Man, now we are in the realm of high comedy.” It has also been reported that Wayans despaired at Seagal’s late arrivals to the set. On one occasion, Seagal turned up with a new script and declared it was the best he’d ever read. When Wayans questioned him about who wrote it, Seagal reportedly replied, “I did.”
Sammy Hagar
As a singer and guitarist, Seagal was once the opening act for Sammy Hagar in 2006, and the ex-Van Halen frontman was taken aback by Seagal’s diva-like behaviour. “He had security guards, he had an entourage of 25-30 people. I’m the headliner of the show, but he had to have the big dressing room because he had so damn many people.” Hagar called Seagal as an “interesting character” adding, “he didn’t walk around without a gun, that’s a weird way to live.” He also noted Seagal was paid only $1,000 for the show, which wouldn’t nearly cover his sizeable expenses.
Brian Cox
The actor Brian Cox, another of Seagal’s co-stars in The Glimmer Man, was singularly unimpressed with his co-star. “[He’s] as ludicrous in real life as he appears onscreen,” Cox summarized. “He radiates a studied serenity, as though he’s on a higher plane to the rest of us. And while he’s certainly on a different plane, no doubt about that, it’s probably not a higher one.” Cox went on to describe Seagal as “thinking himself far more capable and talented than he actually is, seemingly oblivious to the fact that an army of people are helping to prop up his delusion.”
William Forsythe
William Forsythe starred with Seagal in Out for Justice, and had mixed feelings towards the star: “There’s a part of me that really liked him. But then there’s that other side… he was mad at me because I was doing a good job, if that makes any sense.” Forsythe – a born New Yorker – recalled one key incident that really rubbed him up the wrong way: “[Seagal] walked up to me one day and said, “You know, you really need to work on your Brooklyn accent.” I said, “Trust me, YOU do.” And I don’t think he liked that.”
Julius Nasso
Producer Julius Nasso was once a close friend and business partner of Seagal, but in 2002 he sued the star while claiming he’d walked out on a secured four-movie deal. In response, Seagal countersued and claimed that Nasso had hired Mafia members to threaten him. In court, it emerged that Nasso had indeed used his connections to the Gambino crime family to threaten Seagal over a loan repayment. However, Nasso’s legal team branded Seagal a “pathological liar.” Nasso’s defence attorney George Santangelo stated that Seagal “has a reputation all over Hollywood as a liar.”
Cheryl Shuman
Entrepreneur Cheryl Shuman once ran a highly successful optometry business, with many celebrity clients. In the early 90s she worked with Seagal’s team behind the scenes on several movies, and allegedly even had a brief romance with the star (who was married to Kelly LeBrock at the time). However, she would sue him in 1994 for sexual harassment, also accusing him of hiring a group of men to threaten her life. The lawsuit was dismissed, and Shuman’s business collapsed after the Seagal controversy, while she became afraid to re-enter Hollywood circles because she dreaded running into him.
Don Frye
Actor and MMA fighter Don Frye is no fan of Steven Seagal, remarking in a 2012 interview, “I read something about Steven Seagal saying he was the first mixed martial arts fighter on the planet. My a**! I guarantee you, back in 1993 or ’96, he was one of them karate idiots who was bad-mouthing the mixed martial arts and telling everybody that they were b*****dizing the art of karate and it would go nowhere.” He also labelled Seagal a “fata**”, adding: “I’d be afraid if I fell down in front of Seagal he’d start chewing on my toes!”
Rachel Grant
Actress Rachel Grant (best known for Bond movie Die Another Day) has claimed Seagal assaulted her in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2002. She accused him of forcing her top down and pushing her onto a bed after she had said no. Reflecting on the incident in a 2018 interview, she said: “When something like that happens to you, you don’t want to talk about it. I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, I blamed myself.” Seagal’s lawyers denied the accusation.
The Mayor of Llandudno, Wales
On a 2007 musical tour, Seagal visited Llandudno, Wales. He was less than complimentary about the seaside town, suggesting that locals had “all been messing around with the sheep, or standing in the cold too long because there was a bit of a gene pool deal going on.” Llandudno’s Mayor Ann Yates blasted Seagal’s comments as “quite demeaning, quite uncalled for and insulting. He shouldn’t have said things like that and I think he’s lost a lot of fans through it… I don’t think he deserves to be invited back ever again.”
Chael Sonnen
Chael Sonnen, a retired MMA fighter, delivered this backhanded compliment to Seagal in 2011: “I still admire Steven Seagal. Anyone that can be that self-possessed without doing a damn thing to earn it, knows something that I don’t.” Seagal was reported to have helped train Sonnen’s rival Anderson Silva, which led Sonnen to later comment: “Yushin [Okami] and I are in Brazil to follow in Andy’s ways. Got ballet shoes, a team of has-beens, even brought a fat talentless celeb for trainer.”
Faviola Dadis
The model Faviola Dadis attended an audition with Seagal in 2002, which took place at the W Hotel in Beverly Hills. During a run-through of a “romantic scene”, Seagal allegedly assaulted her. “I began yelling, ‘I need to leave right now, this is B.S., I need to leave right now!’” Dadis has recalled. “He motioned to his security guard to let me go and I ran out.” Seagal’s lawyers denied the accusation.
Kirsty Wark
BBC presenter Kirsty Wark sat down with Seagal for a 2018 interview, only to have her interviewee storm out of the session. The turning point was when she said to him: “You’ve been very much caught up in all the allegations of sexual harassment. You had a rape allegation against you and I wonder how you deal with all that?” Seagal didn’t reply, but stood up, removed his earpiece and left the room. Wark ended by saying, “Steven Seagal there, and of course though he didn’t respond there, he has said previously that he denies any allegation made against him.”
Michael Jai White
Michael Jai White is another martial artist who made his career playing action heroes, and he has echoed other actors’ accusations about the poor way Steven Seagal treats his stuntmen. White worked with Seagal on three films, and in an interview he revealed that Seagal has tendency to “hit the s**t” out of his stuntmen, many of whom simply put up with it to avoid losing their jobs.
Bob Odenkirk
One Saturday Night Live writer who emphatically did not enjoy working with Steven Seagal when the actor made his infamous 1991 appearance on the show is Bob Odenkirk. In an interview with Howard Stern, Odenkirk stated that Seagal repeatedly insisted that he’d only appear in sketches if they showed him beating people up, and that he claimed he’d never seen SNL and “didn’t know what you people do here.”
Tom Arnold
Seagal’s Exit Wounds co-star Tom Arnold has recounted witnessing Seagal arguing with the director for 45 minutes over his refusal to rehearse for scenes. The incident culminated with Seagal storming out, which turned out to be a bad move since they were filming on a houseboat. Seagal walked through the wrong door and right into the ocean, and subsequently needed to be rescued by the crew.
Howard Stern
Howard Stern has used his radio show to take shots at Steven Seagal a number of times, whether directly or by giving his guests a chance to tell their funniest Seagal stories. The radio host has described Seagal as a “bulls**t artist” and stated that he is probably one of the few people who actually still watches the actor’s films, albeit only to laugh at them.
Morris Chestnut
Yet another actor who took umbrage at Steven Seagal’s treatment of his stuntmen, Morris Chestnut has publicly called the martial artist out for his on-set behaviour. The actor worked with Seagal on Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, and in an interview he stated Seagal “doesn’t hold back” with his stuntmen, adding “which is wrong, you’re not supposed to do that.”
George Karlukovski
The lead choreographer for 2005’s Submerged, George Karlukovski claimed in an interview that Steven Seagal got extremely upset about a scene in which Vinnie Jones’ character beats him up, claiming it was unrealistic. Jones apparently joked that he’d give Seagal “a run for his money,” which enraged the actor even more. Eventually, the scene was cut from the film.
David Twohy
Director David Twohy has revealed that when he was casting the lead for Pitch Black, the studio were keen to bring in Steven Seagal. Twohy fought “hammer and tongs” against this idea, insisting that other actors be allowed to audition. The role eventually went to Vin Diesel, with Twohy quipping that the actor saved him from “a fate worse than death” by sparing him from having to work with Seagal.
Tim Meadows
While most of the stories about Steven Seagal’s infamous appearance on Saturday Night Live have come from the writers’ room, the cast had a hard time working with him, too. Tim Meadows, who appeared in some of Seagal’s SNL sketches, later stated that “The biggest problem with Steven Seagal was that he would complain about jokes he didn’t get,” which made it incredibly difficult to work with him.
Bas Rutten
After Anderson Silva knocked out Vitor Belfort with a front kick in 2011, Steven Seagal claimed that he had invented the kick that Silva used, earning the scorn of UFC legend Bas Rutten in the process. Rutten later revealed on Twitter that he had initially believed Seagal was joking, before realising that the actor was being completely serious and questioning “what planet is he living on?”
Bob Wall
After getting sick of listening to Steven Seagal repeatedly claiming that he “humiliated” Bruce Lee in a fight, actor Bob Wall contacted 12 martial artists to put Seagal in his place. The martial artists – who came to be known as the Dirty Dozen – issued an open challenge to Seagal, stating that any one of them would be willing to publicly fight him. Unsurprisingly, Seagal never responded to the challenge.
Randy Couture
In 2012, UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture joined the long list of professional fighters to call out Steven Seagal, stating that he’d come out of retirement to fight the actor. Seagal initially agreed to a “no-holds barred” fight, but insisted that it take place with no witnesses, and, to the shock of precisely no one, he never followed through.
Lorne Michaels
Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering he had to bear the brunt of Steven Seagal’s SNL antics, series creator Lorne Michaels has had some harsh words for the actor over the years. Michaels has described Seagal as “the worst host in SNL history” as well as the “biggest jerk who’s ever been on the show”. Unsurprisingly, Michaels has banned the actor from ever returning.
Rob Schneider
In an interview with Howard Stern, comedian Rob Schneider recounted a story he had heard from one his friends who was in a meeting about an Under Siege sequel. Allegedly, Seagal stated “I have just read the greatest script I’ve ever read in my life.” When he was asked who had written the script, Seagal replied: “I did.”
Matt Parker and Trey Stone
As the writers of South Park, the list of celebrities that Matt Parker and Trey Stone have trained their sights on is very long, and it unsurprisingly includes Steven Seagal. In a season 19 episode titled Safe Space, Seagal is portrayed as heavily overweight, narcissistic and emotionally fragile, constantly complaining about people being mean to him while insisting how deadly he is.
David Spade
While the entire cast and crew of Saturday Night Live were thoroughly sick of Steven Seagal almost immediately after they began working with him, David Spade went further than the rest and suggested they drop him entirely. In an interview with Bob Lowe, Spade revealed that Seagal “didn’t want to play at all,” leading the comedian to suggest doing the episode without a host.
John Gray
It wasn’t just Stephen Tobolowsky who had a hard time with Steven Seagal’s Buddhism interfering with the filmmaking process. John Gray, who directed Glimmer Man, had to constantly rewrite scenes at the last second, because, as he put it, Seagal believed “killing people on screen” would hurt his “karmic development”. Understandably, Gray wasn’t in a rush to work with Seagal again.
Jesus Sanchez Llovera, whose puppy Seagal allegedly killed
In 2011, whilst filming Steven Seagal: Lawman, Seagal participated in a SWAT raid on the ranch of suspected cockfight organizer Jesus Sanchez Llovera. After his property was ravaged by a tank and numerous heavily armed men including Seagal, Llovera took out a lawsuit, alleging that among the damage done, the family puppy had been shot dead. Seagal and the Maricopa County police denied all charges.
His first wife
When Seagal lived in Japan in the 1970s, he married Miyako Fujitani, the daughter of his Aikido instructor, with whom he had two children. However, Seagal abandoned them when he decided to return to the US to pursue work in Hollywood. During this time he cheated on Miyako at least twice, before his affair with Kelly LeBrock led to her agreeing to a divorce.
His second wife
Although Seagal’s best-known Hollywood wife was Kelly LeBrock, he was in fact briefly married beforehand to another actress, Adrienne La Russa. They tied the knot in 1984, but the union was quickly annulled when it emerged Seagal had not yet divorced first wife Miyako Fujitani. La Russa later told Spy magazine that she “gave [Seagal] money for months afterward just to get him out of my life.”
Kentaro Seagal
Seagal’s second child with Miyako Fujitani, daughter Ayako, chooses not to use her father’s surname. This is not the case with their first child, Kentaro Seagal, but this doesn’t mean father and son are any closer. Kentaro remarked in 2010: “I don’t want to have a relationship [with him]… I don’t know him. You know, he’s [my] father and that’s it.”
Arissa LeBrock
Another of Seagal’s children to opt against using their father’s name is model Arissa LeBrock, his daughter with Kelly LeBrock. As this might suggest, Arissa and her father are not close. She recently revealed that Seagal made a rare phone call to criticise her for featuring in reality TV series Growing Up Supermodel. She has since taken up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a martial art her father has widely criticized.
Kane Hodder
Prolific stuntman Kane Hodder is popular among horror fans for portraying Jason Voorhees in several Friday the 13th movies. On the set of 1992’s Under Siege, a boy visiting the set recognised Hodder and asked for his autograph. When Seagal saw this, Hodder heard him say, “who the f*** is Kane Hodder?” They had already worked together on Out for Justice the previous year.
Stephen Quadros
Knowing Seagal’s reputation for roughing up stuntmen, actor and martial artist Stephen Quadros had his guard up on Exit Wounds. Introducing himself to the actor, Quadros found Seagal constantly squaring up to him, which he found “very weird.” Later, Seagal approached Quadros and, unprovoked, attempted to get him in a wrist lock. Quadros reversed the lock, Seagal smiled and said “you’re good,” then walked away.
Peter Harris Kent
Peter Kent (best known as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunt double) worked on Seagal’s short-lived TV series True Justice, and had nothing nice to say about the star. Kent claimed Seagal “had a babe in cut offs holding his dialogue on placards” off-camera, noted that the actor was smothered in fake tan, and that he was “loathed by the entire cast and crew.”
The Warner Bros. employees he paid off after they accused him of assault
Seagal may have faced scores of sexual misconduct and assault accusations during #MeToo, but similar charges had been brought against him many years earlier. In 1991, three employees of studio Warner Bros – Raenne Malone, Nicole Selinger, and Christine Keeve – accused the actor of sexually harassing them. Seagal is alleged to have bought their silence, paying all three women $50,000 out of court.
Kayden Nguyen
In 2010, former model Kayden Nguyen took out a $1 million lawsuit against Seagal, claiming that when she was hired as his personal assistant, she held her captive and treated her as a sex slave for several days. She also accused him of trafficking women. As should be expected by now, Seagal denied all charges, and for unknown reasons the case was dismissed in court.
The sick children whose land he built a martial arts center on
In March 2023, Seagal opened a center in his new home of Russia to teach martial arts to the military. Built in Rublevka, near Moscow, the land for this center was given to Seagal by the Russian authorities, but the space had originally been reserved for another, surely more worthy purpose: a facility for the care of children afflicted with cancer.
Master Ken
Matt Page – more commonly known as Master Ken – is an American comedian who invented the satirical martial art of Ameri-Do-Te. Although a comedian by trade, Page is actually a proficient martial artist in real life, and he’s taken shots at Steven Seagal on a few occasions, at one point posting a meme to Facebook which depicted the actor demanding, “Stop fighting back so I can show you how martial arts work.”
Joey Diaz
In an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, comedian Joey Diaz tore into Steven Seagal for the strange way he runs, suggesting it looks like he has ‘special needs’. After initially trying to chalk it up to Seagal’s height and Aikido training, Rogan eventually conceded that the way the actor runs is, in fact, extremely bizarre.
Tom Segura
Comedian Tom Segura has stated that he “never tires” of mocking Steven Seagal, who he describes as “out of his mind.” In a Netflix comedy special, Segura skewers Seagal for pretending to be “an expert in everything,” which the comedian describes as “the least likeable quality in a human being.”
Stavros Halkias
In an episode of his podcast, comedian Stavros Halkias sent some major shots in Steven Seagal’s direction. Discussing Seagal’s movie Sniper Special Ops, Halkias and his co-hosts mocked the actor’s weight, lack of acting ability and the fact that he seems to be sitting down in most of the movie, as well as highlighting the fact that Seagal clearly has no idea how to actually hold a gun.
