Leandro 'Leo' Dottavio quickly responds to the report, denying all the allegations that's leveled to him in a statement.
- Aug 4, 2018
AceShowbiz - Bekah Martinez, who competed in Arie Luyendyk's season of "The Bachelor", has thrown some major accusations against "The Bachelorette" star Leandro "Leo" Dottavio. Bekah recently took to her social media account to accuse Leo, who was one of the contenders in Becca Kufrin's season of "The Bachelorette", of sexual harassing a slew of women.
Bekah shared on Instagram Stories several screenshots from women who claimed that Leo had acted inappropriately toward them. The first photo saw Leo commenting, "You need my big d**k," on someone's Instagram post. Bekah captioned the photo, "some great guys from this season," while adding an arrow to Leo's account.
Another photo featured a woman, who went to the same college with Leo, claiming that she had "several disgusting stories of him being more than creepy towards women." The woman added, "Several other people have come to me over the years with their own stories, some of them were barely legal when it happened." One other accused Leo of sending her friend "multiple, unwanted d**k pics."
@whats_ur_sign_ thank you for making people aware of this. he was one of my faves on the show too. what a damn shame he’s going to paradise now. @TheBachelorTV there have been too many stories like this recently. casting NEEDS to do better. #TheBachelorette#MenTellAllpic.twitter.com/0EBU05nwVO
— sam🌹 (@cluelessamantha) August 1, 2018
Leo quickly responded to the report, denying all the allegations that are leveled to him. He said in a statement, "There have been some recent stories about me that have garnered attention and I want to address them. I want to start by saying no one has ever directly accused me of sexual harassment. No one has ever come to me in any way shape or form and told me I made them feel uncomfortable. "
"Now with that being said I am NOT A PERFECT person nor have I ever claimed to be. Did I do things in college that I would be embarrassed about now? Absolutely," he continued. "Was I a victim of my culture, the times, movies? Yes. I have grown as a person since college! I am not the man I was 2 years ago let alone 14 years ago."
"It's important for women to speak out if they felt harassed. I welcome that. If there was anyone I made feel uncomfortable why not come to me? I would love an opportunity to right my wrongs and speak to any woman that wants to tell me how and when I made them feel uncomfortable. I want to take this as an opportunity to better myself and the treatment of women in my life," he concluded.
Prior to releasing the statement, Leo told New York Post that the photo was photoshopped and he would have his lawyer investigating the matter. Bekah later responded that it wasn't a coincidence that "multiple women would be saying similar things about the same person." She added, "There's no way these women happen to be lying about the same thing before seeing what other women are saying."
Bekah also said that Leo's lawyer threatened to sue her for defamation unless she deletes the posts and issues a public apology. ABC has yet to comment on the matter.
