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"He grabbed my trachea, maybe it's something he learned from the British special forces," said the reality-TV channel's "kung-fu grip" animator. Hunt for the Trump Tapes ". Emmys party.
"First of all, how could I get Mark Burnett to cooperate?" Tom Arnold asks. "And I would never do a police report for something wrong, I would never go to a doctor, it really choked me."
Arnold, the 59-year-old actor / comedian turned investigative reporter, his address to The Hollywood Reporter from the waiting room of an ear, nose and throat specialist from Beverly Hills, a flock of paparazzi who move outside. He was first asked the most obvious question: an alleged violent confrontation with the mega-reality TV producer Mark Burnett at a pre-Emmys night – the one where Twitter was buzzing on Sunday night – was only a publicity stunt for his new show in Viceland?
No way, said Arnold. He had not initially planned to attend the Evening Before Party, an annual fundraiser organized by Jeffrey Katzenberg and for the benefit of the Film and Television Fund. But his friend Bryan Fogel – the Oscar winner of the doping doc 2017 Icarus – called him Sunday to ask him if he would like to be his mate.
It seemed to Arnold that Burnett, 58, would probably be present at the event and that things could become embarrassing. After all, the Arnold show at Viceland, The hunt for trumps – first on 18 September – is determined to unearth incriminating images of Donald Trump, some of which have been shot on the Burnett set. L & # 39; s apprentice. Burnett has long maintained that the Apprentice The samples are the property of MGM Television, which bought its business in December 2015, and thus legally not on release.
Nevertheless, Burnett hardly concealed his dissatisfaction with Arnold's show, and his legal team sent threatening letters to Vice Media regarding what Burnett considered inaccuracies in Arnold's Twitter feed. THR. According to Arnold, Burnett went further, insisting however that Burnett made several calls to prominent figures around Hollywood, attempting to completely make the series disappear.
Despite the bad blood, Arnold says that he never anticipated that things could get violent at an industry party that would involve hundreds of stars and leaders. "I thought he was going to blow me up and not talk to me," he says. "People are running away from me, which I'm used to."
The trouble began almost as soon as Arnold and Fogel arrived. To attend the party, held in front of the Century Plaza Hotel, guests had to climb a staircase. At the top, Arnold, wearing black-horned glasses and a gray-check blazer, spotted Burnett with several other people. (A woman would probably have been Burnett's wife, Roma Downey, who later tweeted a photo of a bruised hand, alleging that it was the result of an attempt to ambush the couple.)
According to Arnold, Burnett then proceeded to a "turnaround and an eye". Undaunted, Arnold climbed up the stairs and, he said, quickly felt Burnett [his] direction."
"He's getting closer, he's really boring, he's breathing heavily," Arnold recalls. "Then he collides with me, I can smell his breath, he is in my fucking face, his eyes are psychopathic, I look at him from one eye to the other, like:" Are you kidding me? "
It is then, he says, that Burnett took Arnold's throat with one hand – what he calls a "kung-fu catch" – and began to # 39; choke. "He grabbed my trachea, maybe it's something he learned from the US special forces." (Burnett served as a parachute commando in the British Army from 1978 to 1982.)
Arnold calls the maneuver a "choke" for the way he unbalanced it at the top of a steep staircase. "Then I tried to regain my balance," he recalls. "I say to myself," You better leave me my balance if we fight, fucking, motherfucker. You're going to fuck. "And I also have trouble finding my wind: suddenly, I hear one of his friends say," Mark, do not choke him! Mark! Do not choke! "
After getting back on his feet, Arnold "grabbed part of his body and stirred until we came face to face. Then they separate us. I decide, "Here's what I'm going to get from this guy. : his shirt, his fucking gold chain with Jesus and maybe a part of his face or hair.
Arnold then started screaming at Burnett. "I just pounded him:" Fuck crazy, psychopath, fucking bastard! "He had lost it, did he think he was going to kick me out?" You do not come in, he said. I do not know if he was drunk or what. He thought that he could prevent me from walking he passed by him? Did he think he could go beyond me? He had that blank stare on his fucking face as he was out of his mind. "
There were a lot of witnesses, says Arnold, including Kevin Bacon and his daughter Sosie Bacon. "Kevin Bacon was shocked," Arnold recalls. "I could tell he was tired, he was like," I just want you to know Tom, we have your back. "But her daughter was not disconcerted, she said," We had this. "
"People have been stunned," he added.
Arnold did not leave the party. Instead, he mixed with famous guests, many of whom supported his crusade against Trump TV. "I'm with @Tom Arnold, everyone," tweeted Patton Oswalt of the evening. "He's fine, we have to protect this brutal angel."
Arnold called the Los Angeles Police Department and an officer asked him to come to the train station the next morning. At 10 o'clock on Monday, a few hours before the stars lay Emmys' red carpet, he filed a battery complaint.
"The suspect, unprovoked, reached out and grabbed the victim's throat and squeezed his throat," the investigation report said. "In self defense, he fought."
Representatives from Burnett and MGM did not respond to requests for comments.
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