A representative for the late TV host Bob Barker is speaking out following recent harassment allegations tied to The Price Is Right, after former models alleged a culture of sexual harassment on the set of the game show in a docuseries.
“Barker was and is beloved, and people to this day love him,” Barker’s rep Roger Neal told USA Today on Wednesday. He denied the veracity of the allegations, according to the publication.
“He was part of the fabric of American pop culture. He was the greatest MC in TV history. I was honoured to have represented him.”
In the docuseries, Dirty Rotten Scandals, former models Kathleen Bradley, Holly Hallstorm and former producer Barbara Hunter alleged that they were victims of sexually inappropriate behaviour on the show’s set during its earlier years.
In a clip released from E!’s docuseries, the women claimed that Barker ignored the mistreatment and said CBS stepped in only to create a “10-second rule,” where the men weren’t supposed to openly stare at the show’s models for longer than 10 seconds.
Bradley, who was part of “Barker’s Beauties,” said that one male stagehand was “too friendly” with the female models and would “rub up” against them.
“When I reported this guy to the producers, to my surprise, no action was taken. I was really taken aback. This was really sexual harassment,” she said.
Bradley said that during a taping of the show, she intentionally hit the man in his groin with a golf club.
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“I accidentally hit him right in the groin. Accidentally on purpose that was,” Bradley said as she laughed. “We were so exhausted and tired of the treatment. You just had to do what you had to do.”
Producer Hunter, who worked on the show during the mid-1970s, said that there “was stuff going on where you had to say, ‘Hey, stop that.’”
“One time I was in the elevator and one of the men just stuck their hands right on my boobs,” Hunter claimed. “I had to push him away. I didn’t say anything. It became instinct to know how to handle it.”
Hallstorm, who was part of “Barker’s Beauties” from 1977 to 1995, alleged that producers created the “10-second rule” as “an appeasement” but “no one was monitoring how long the guys were staring at the models.”
“If anyone had gone to Bob because Bob is in charge of the show and said, ‘I have a problem I have a complaint,’ he would have told her to get over it or look for a new job,” Hallstorm claimed.
She also spoke about Barker’s alleged affair with former model Dian Parkinson while the host was still in a relationship with Nancy Burnet, with whom he was in a long-term relationship until his death in August 2023.
“Bob started having sex with Dian. It took a toll. There was fighting on the sets, yelling and it was massive. And it ultimately, I think, destroyed The Price Is Right,” Hallstorm said.
In 1994, Parkinson filed an US$8 million sexual harassment lawsuit, claiming that she had been forced to have sex with Barker in order to keep her job before she was wrongfully fired.
Barker denied the charges and Parkinson withdrew the suit a year later, citing medical distress and insufficient funds to pay for legal fees.
Hallstorm alleged that Barker fired her from the show, and told her she was let go because she was overweight.
She said in the docuseries that Barker said she was leaving as part of an “early retirement.”
“When I didn’t agree, that’s when the whole thing blew up. And then lawyers called me and started negotiating the terms of retirement and I said, ‘But I don’t want to retire. There’s no need for me to retire,’” she said in the doc.
“But there really was no choice. Barker wanted me gone. I was being fired and I wouldn’t be coming back, after nearly 20 years on the show. I was devastated.”
Barker denied the allegations and went on to sue Hallstorm for libel and slander after she told tabloid show Hard Copy that she was fired in October 1995 because she gained weight through medication. In 2000, he dropped the lawsuit 48 hours before the trial, and Hallstorm countersued him for wrongful termination and malicious prosecution, which she won in 2005.
“He filed a bogus lawsuit against me and dragged me through court for 10 years until I had nothing left. And that’s why I didn’t speak out for so many years, because he was alive. I didn’t speak out until he was dead because even though he lost, he would’ve done it again in a heartbeat,” she claimed.
Fremantle, the production company behind The Price Is Right, has not commented publicly on the allegations as of this writing. Global News has reached out for comment.
CBS had no comment when contacted by Global News.
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