George H.W. Bush tells the same lewd joke when taking pictures to 'try to put people at ease'

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October 26, 2017 5:17 PM

The joke apparently goes, "Do you want to know who my favorite magician is? ... David Cop-a-Feel!"

Two actresses have accused former President George H.W. Bush of inappropriately touching them.
Bush, a spokesman confirmed, routinely tells an off-color joke when taking a picture.
The joke apparently goes, "Do you want to know who my favorite magician is? ... David Cop-a-Feel!"

A spokesman for George H.W. Bush on Wednesday said the former president often told a lewd joke when taking pictures with new people.

Two actresses this week have publicly accused Bush of inappropriately touching them and telling an off-color joke while being photographed with them. One of the women, an actress named Jordana Grolnick, detailed an August 2016 incident to Deadspin.

"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?'" Grolnick said. "As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, 'David Cop-a-Feel!'" (The joke seems to play off the name of the magician David Copperfield.)

Another actress, Heather Lind, said in a now-deleted Instagram post that Bush repeatedly touched her from behind and told a dirty joke when they met in 2014.

"He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke," Lind wrote. "And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again."

A spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that Bush, who has vascular parkinsonism, a disorder resembling Parkinson's disease, had told the joke since he began using a wheelchair five years ago because "his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures."

"To try to put people at ease, 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," the statement said.

It added: "Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”

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