Actress Heather Lind alleged that former president George H.W. Bush "sexually assaulted" her, in a lengthy Instagram post, which has since been deleted.
A spokesperson for the former president said in a statement to the Daily Mail: "President Bush would never - under any circumstance - intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologizes if his attempt at humor offended Ms. Lind."
Actress Jordana Grolnick shared a similar story to Lind's with Deadspin Wednesday, alleging that she had also been groped by the former president.
According to Grolnick, in 2016 she was performing in the play "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," and Bush came backstage after the performance to take a photo with the cast.
“We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” Grolnick said. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!’”
In a statement to Deadspin, Bush's spokesperson Jim McGrath, said that, “President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures."
McGrath also apologized on behalf of the former president, and said that "the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner."
"Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate," McGrath said.
Author Christina Baker Kline also alleged that the former president groped her during a photo op in 2014, in an article published on Slate Thursday.
Kline said she had been invited to a Barbara Bush Foundation Family Literacy fundraiser, and when she and two other male writers were gathering to take a photo with Bush, he pulled her aside.
Kline recalled Bush asking her, “You wanna know my favorite book?” and responded “David Cop-a-feel.”
According to Kline, he "squeezed my butt, hard, just as the photographer snapped the photo."
The author also recalled being asked to be "discreet" when recounting what happened to her husband while leaving the fundraiser in a car driven by a friend of the Bush family.
Bush spokesman Jim McGrath responded to Kline's allegations with the same statement he sent to Deadspin, according to Vulture.