Sean Penn has recently addressed past rumours that he was physically abusive to his ex-wife Madonna during their marriage.
The couple were married from 1985 to 1989, and in 1987 allegations came out that the actor had been violent toward his wife, which she has since denied.
Speaking with The New York Times, the Mystic River actor opened up about the false allegations, sharing that at one point he had a SWAT team enter his home, after Madonna had allegedly told police about guns in the house.
“I said: ‘I’m not coming out. I’m going to finish my breakfast.’ The next thing I knew, windows were being broken all around the house and they came in,” he shared. “They had me in handcuffs.”
He recalled the claims in the media that he had “trussed [Madonna] up like a turkey,” and that he was asked once “about hitting Madonna in the head with a baseball bat.”
He said: “I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Now, I think it’s fair to say that I’m not the biggest guy in the world. But if I hit Mike Tyson in the head with a baseball bat, he’s going to the hospital.”
The ‘Material Girl’ singer denied the allegations of abuse in an affidavit during Penn’s case against Lee Daniels for defamation, after the filmmaker compared Terrence Howard’s admission that he slapped his first wife with Penn’s alleged behaviour.
In the affidavit, the singer said: “While we certainly had more than one heated argument during our marriage, Sean has never struck me, ‘tied me up,’ or physically assaulted me, and any report to the contrary is completely outrageous, malicious, reckless and false.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Penn spoke about his ex-wife, saying: “She’s someone I love.”
He continued: “It turns out it’s a lot quicker to repair a friendship after divorce if there are not kids involved.”
In other news, the lawsuit against Madonna over the singer delaying the start of her ‘Celebration Tour’ has been dismissed.