Rumor has it Kevin Costner is a bit of an exhibitionist.
The Upside of Anger star is on the downside of a sex scandal after it was disclosed that he was the man who allegedly exposed himself to a female masseuse and performed a sex act while he and his wife were honeymooning at a posh Scottish hotel in October 2004.
Costner, 51, was named in a complaint brought by an unidentified 34-year-old woman against the five-star Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, per British media reports. The woman alleges sexual discrimination and wrongful termination, claiming management ignored her complaints about Costner's purported misbehavior.
Per the woman's court testimony, Costner grabbed the spa worker while she was giving him a massage, then dropped his towel and masturbated.
"It was disgusting and, even though he was a Hollywood superstar, I couldn't believe he thought he could get away with something like that," the woman said in testimony that month at a British employment hearing in Dundee. "Kevin Costner abused me and I considered that a criminal act. When I was giving his wife a massage afterwards, I wanted to tell her everything."
Instead, she went to court, suing the hotel for not taking her allegations seriously and then supposedly firing her without justification last August.
The British tribunal initially put a gag order on the case, refusing to divulge the identity of alleged happy ender. But Costner's name surfaced after the employee reached an undisclosed settlement with hotel management Tuesday and her lawyers successfully persuaded the tribunal's chairman, Nicol Hosie, to lift the ban after Costner's identity was revealed in the National Enquirer and the Sunday Times Australia, among other tabloids.
"It is very significant that his name is widely reported in the world's press. It is already a matter which is in the public domain," Britain's Herald newspaper quoted Hosie as saying.
The panel was not required to judge whether the woman's allegations were true nor, said Hosie, was the idea of protecting Costner's reputation just reason for withholding his name.
When the first reports surfaced tying Costner to the case, his publicist, Paul Bloch, issued a statement saying: "We find it unfortunate that Mr. Costner's name has been brought into what is essentially a dispute between a company owned by a good friend of his and a former employee--and that is would tarnish what was a wonderful time spent at this resort with his wife.
"This was never about Kevin Costner," Bloch continued. " It was a dispute between the hotel and an ex-employee."
Costner and his second wife, Christine Baumgartner, spent their honeymoon at the Old Court Hotel, which is owned by his friend, American businessman, Herb Kohler. The resort's management refused to comment on the case.
"The parties have settled this matter," the hotel said. "The terms are confidential and undisclosed."
Costner's been making headlines on both sides of the pond in recent weeks.
In a case Stateside, a hairdresser who was hired to primp guests at the couple's September 2004 wedding pleaded guilty to swiping a laptop computer from the actor's Aspen-area home. The stylist paid $1,500 in restitution, was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation and 25 hours of community service.
Costner will next be seen on the big screen playing a veteran Coast Guard rescue swimmer training a bunch of newbies, including Ashton Kutcher, in The Guardian, due out in September.