The only actor who felt sorry for Steven Seagal: “A tragedy of Hollywood”
There’s been one overriding emotion directed towards Steven Seagal throughout his career, both onscreen and off, and it sure as shit isn’t sympathy.
The martial artist and action star is one of the least popular stars of the modern era, leaving a trail of bad blood and burned bridges wherever he goes. People who’ve worked with him hate his guts, people who haven’t worked with him can’t stand him, and people he’s only tangentially connected to would love nothing more than to round up 11 of their friends and beat him to death.
Needless to say, the sentiment has been that of indignation, anger, fury, rage, seething hatred, animosity, and foul-mouthed tirades, and based on how many industry figures have come forward with their tales of woe born from either encountering or collaborating with Seagal, it seems fair to say the guy’s a bit of a dick.
Not that he cares, though, with Seagal more concerned about enhancing and embellishing his legend. He’s crafted an entire mythology around himself that’s gradually had more and more holes poked in it. Still, he remains the sort of guy who’ll happily compare a script he wrote for a straight-to-video flick to the work of Akira Kurosawa or suggest that he deserved a Nobel Prize when accusing Al Gore of riding his coattails.
It’s difficult enough to find someone who has a kind word to say about Seagal, never mind expressing their sympathies. And yet, one actor voiced their commiserations, even if it was his ex-wife. Kelly LeBrock first gained mainstream attention in John Hughes’ Weird Science, which would be the last time she appeared in a movie for five years.
Her half-decade sabbatical ended when she returned to the screen to star opposite Seagal in Hard to Kill three years after they’d married. LeBrock filed for divorce in 1994, and their union was officially dissolved two years later and her lingering sentiment towards her former husband was that of pity.
“I feel sorry for the man,” she said, per Newsweek. “I think that he’s just a very sad person and he is what I would call a tragedy of Hollywood. I believe he was very bullied as a child, very sickly, very weak, and I guess people who are treated that way as children end up becoming lost as they age.”
The strange thing is that LeBrock’s comments are among the nicest things anybody associated with the film or television industry has ever said about Seagal, which is exactly as telling as it looks. Most of the people he’s encountered over the decades can’t stand the guy, but having spent almost ten years as his wife, she’s better placed than most to comment on what makes him tick. Funnily enough, his mother said almost the exact same thing about him, too.
