Luke Walton is not going down without a fight.
It’s been almost three months since Luke Walton was reporter Kelli Tennant accused him of sexual misconduct back in 2014, but Walton has just now broken his silence and speaking against the allegations.
Via TMZ:
“Luke Walton admits he did meet up with the woman accusing him of sexual assault in a Santa Monica hotel room … but the Sacramento Kings head coach says she’s lying about what went down.
In new legal docs obtained by TMZ Sports … Walton claims his accuser, Kelli Tennant, was the person who initiated their meet-up, but he is adamant their encounter was “platonic” and nothing sexual even occurred.
In the docs, Walton claims when he was a Warriors coach, Tennant drove to meet him at a hotel the team was staying at while in town to play the Lakers, something she initiated.
Now, Walton is pushing back against many of her claims from her lawsuit … he says he did NOT write a foreword for her book, says he was NOT her broadcasting mentor and says there was NO sexual assault when she dropped off her book at his hotel.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NBA stories via Google! Follow Us
In the docs, Walton claims Tennant never complained to him or anyone else, including law enforcement, about any aspect of the visit that she initiated … and he points out she waited nearly 5 years to file her complaint.”
Back in April, she claimed Walton pinned her to the hotel bed and assaulted her as she claims Walton laughed at her as she pleaded with him to stop.
“I parked my car across the street and as I walked into the hotel with him I anticipated us walking into the lobby, where we would hang out and catch up. And he started to walk towards the elevators, and I asked him where we were going. He said up to his room. And I asked him why we were going up to his room, and he said because the players on his team were in the lobby and he could not be around them, he didn’t want to be seen in the lobby with the players. So I was hesitant, and he said “don’t worry about it, it’s me.” And as someone that I trusted for a long time, I realized I shouldn’t overthink it, and followed his lead. I walked up to the hotel with him and continued to tell myself not to overthink it and that I could trust him.
Out of nowhere he got on top of me and pinned me down to the bed, and held my arms down with all of his weight while he kissed my neck and my face and my chest. And as I kept asking him to please stop and to get off, he laughed at me. I continued to ask him to stop over and over again, without any use of my arms, because he continued to hold me down. I could feel him rubbing his erection on me, and he continued to laugh at all of my pleas to get off and to stop. I thought he was going to rape me.”
