Larry King denies he groped Eddie Fisher's ex-wife twice
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Larry King is denying he groped Terry Richard, the ex-wife of late singer Eddie Fisher, on two separate red carpets.
"Larry King flatly and unequivocally denies these claims and intends to file suit and prove that they're utterly false," the 84-year-old's lawyer told Fox News Monday.
Terry Richard told the UK-based news and gossip site DailyMailTV on Monday that King groped her at a public event on two separate occasions. She claimed the incidents took place in 2005 and 2006, both at a baseball awards dinner at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
Richard said she was a correspondent for the Tolucan Times in Los Angeles and was on the red carpet interviewing several baseball players for a story.
“Larry King is a groper,” said Richard. “He groped me twice. He gets a thrill doing this in front of the camera, knowing I couldn’t do anything.”
The 63-year-old claimed the first incident occurred when the pair were posing for a photo. She insisted the former CNN talk show host allegedly slid his hand down her backless dress, resting his fingers in between her buttocks.
Richard also alleged the second incident also occurred while the two were posing for a photo. She claimed King squeezed her butt so hard, it left a large bruise.
Richard, former Miss Louisiana 1973, said she first met King back in 2004.
“At that time I told Larry I was Eddie Fisher’s fourth wife and he responded in a curmudgeonly manner stomping his foot with his hands on his hips as he said to me, ‘How did you get away?’” she explained. “Then he added, ‘When are you coming on my TV show?’ I responded, ‘Not until my book is ready.’”
Then in 2005, Richard said King recognized her from their initial meeting at a baseball awards show. She added a photographer then requested to snap a photo of the pair for the Tolucan Times.
“Larry put his hand behind me on my back, and as the photographer was taking our picture Larry slid his hand down from the middle of my back to putting his hand inside of my dress and it ended up with about three or four of his fingers in the crack of my ass, resting in the crack of my ass,” she alleged. “He just stuck it in… I don’t know how he got [his hand] in there, but he did. I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked. I froze. I let out a squelch… I just smiled there real big, I didn’t know what to do.’”
Richard added King allegedly left his fingers in between her buttocks for “about eight to ten seconds.”
“He had a big smile on his face,” she said. “I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone. My reaction was to slap him in his face, but he was the guest speaker. It was awful.”
Richard claimed the incident happened again the following year when she attended another baseball awards event. After spotting King, she attempted to avoid him, but “somehow he was right in front of my face.”
That’s when she said another photographer asked to take a photo of the duo.
“I thought since I wasn’t wearing a backless dress this time I didn’t think it was going to happen again, so I posed with him for another picture. I thought, ‘Surely, he’s not going to do anything this time,' and the old dog did.”
She alleged King tightly grabbed her butt cheek, resulting in a bruise that lasted for a week.
“He ran off with his wife down the red carpet towards the limousines,” she said. “And I just stood there shocked, thinking this must be a thing for Larry... Because of what happened to me, every time I take a picture with a man that I don’t really know, in the back of my mind, for a split second, I wonder if I’m going to be groped."
Richard said she’s hoping that coming forward will result in an apology from King.
“How would he feel if someone did that to his wife or his daughter?” she questioned. “Larry has two young sons that I hope wouldn’t do what he did… It would be cool if he did apologize for his actions. Larry needs to take responsibility for his actions.”
Richard married Fisher in 1975, but the couple divorced a year later in 1976.
Fisher died in 2010 at age 82.