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The Nanny star Lauren Lane has claimed that Wallace Shawn made an unwelcome “sexual advance” towards her during an incident in the 90’s.
Lane was interviewed by Vice when she discussed the encounter. She alleged that Shawn made the unwelcome “sexual advance” when he was a guest star on the popular sitcom in its second season.
At that point, Shawn was a beloved actor for his roles in The Princess Bride and My Dinner with Andre. Lane, C.C. Babcock on The Nanny, said that she initially thought the pair were hitting it off, enjoying normal banter and discussing “literature and writing”.
Things then took a shocking turn, she alleged: “I’m going to be f–king honest. I’m walking up to my dressing room and he’s going back to New York, so we hug goodbye, and he put his fucking tongue in my ear,” Lane stated.
“I remember pulling away and inside it was like a little death because it felt like, is this all it was all week? Like, you didn’t really enjoy talking to me? It was horrible.”
Lane made clear that she didn’t view it as harmless but firmly believed it was a “sexual advance”. “I did not expect it either because nothing we had done or spoken about had any feeling of like — I mean, why would someone put their tongue in your ear?” she continued. “That was really heartbreaking to me.”
She also told Vice that she had previously discussed the incident with a friend in 2011 but this is the first time she’s taken it publicly.
Wallace Shawn has already moved to deny the allegation in an email to Vice. “In all my seventy-seven years I’ve never put my tongue in anyone’s ear,” he wrote. “Not that I condemn those who do, if there are any. If we were hugging goodbye, I might have kissed her on the cheek?”
Check out Lauren Lane discussing The Nanny with Fran Drescher:
