Leeann Tweeden alleged today in an online post that Sen. Al Franken forced her to kiss him several years ago when they were both in Afghanistan.
She is a radio anchor at Los Angeles station KABC (owned by Cumulus Media) and has worked in sports broadcasting. She currently covers the news during the morning radio show “McIntyre in the Morning” which runs from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m. local time.
In the first-person account that she wrote for KABC’s website, in which she accuses Franken of kissing and groping her, Tweeden mentions some of her past modeling work.
She writes that she has been on the covers of Playboy, Maxim and FHM.
She is married and she has two children – a son, 4, and a 2-year-old daughter.
Tweeden’s 2006 USO trip to Afghanistan, when the alleged groping and kissing incidents with Franken occurred, was not the first time Tweeden entertained U.S. troops.
The 2006 trip was her ninth time participating in a USO Tour since the Sept. 11 attacks five years earlier, she wrote.
According to Tweeden’s post, her father served in the Vietnam War and her now-husband, whom she was dating at the time of the 2006 tour, is an Air Force pilot.
Franken, who was elected as a Democratic senator for Minnesota in 2008, responded to the accusations in a statement.
“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it,” he said.
