Tom Arnold Says Mark Burnett Cornered & Choked Him At A Pre-Emmys Party
Tom Arnold spoke to The Hollywood Reporter alleging that Mark Burnett physically assaulted him, so much so that he had to go to the doctor. “I would never file a police report for something fake. I would never go to a doctor. He genuinely choked me out,” he said.
The alleged violation happened at a pre-Emmys party. Tom had not initially planned on attending the party, which was an annual fundraiser bash hosted by Jeffrey Katzenberg and benefiting the Motion Picture & Television Fund, reports THR. But his friend, director Bryan Fogel, asked if he’d like to tag along as his plus-one. He knew Mark Burnett would be there, and Mark was pissed about Tom’s Viceland show, The Hunt for the Trump Tapes where he threatened to released incriminating footage of Trump on Mark’s show The Apprentice.
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At the party, Tom says Mark proceeded to “straighten out and eyeball me.” Tom said he got the sense that Mark was “moving in [his] direction” when he began to roam around. “He’s getting closer, he’s super chesty, he’s breathing heavily,” he recalls. “Then he bumps into me. I could smell his fucking breath. He’s in my fucking face, psycho-eyed. I look at him eyeball-to-eyeball, like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?'”
It was then, Tom says, that Mark took his throat in one hand — what he calls a “kung-fu grip” — and began to choke him. “He grabbed my windpipe hard. Maybe it was something he learned in the U.K. Special Forces.” (Burnett served as a parachute commando in the British Army from 1978-1982, reports THR).
“So I tried to regain my balance,” he recalls. “I’m like, ‘You better let me get my balance if we’re going to fucking fight, you cocksucker. You motherfucker.’ And I’m also having trouble getting my wind. All of a sudden I hear one of his buddies say, ‘Mark! Don’t choke him! Mark! Don’t choke!'”
Tom said he “grabbed some part of his body and wiggled my way up until we squared-up face-to-face. Then they pull us apart. I decide, ‘Here’s what I’m going to get from this guy: his shirt, his fucking gold chain with Jesus on it, and maybe part of his face or his hair.'”
Read more at THR.