It’s not been a good week for John Travolta. Two lawsuits have been launched in the last few days by male masseurs, one saying Travolta touched his penis without asking and masturbated in front of him, while another said he got an erection and tried to make the masseur touch his anus.

Now Radar Online reports that Fabian Zanzi, who was apparently in charge of VIPs on a 2009 Royal Caribbean Cruise Line that Travolta took, says the actor offered him $12,000 for sex. Zanzi says that, “He had something on his neck. I thought it was a fuzz. As I approached, he took off his white coat and was naked. He hugged me and asked me to do a massage.” The former cruise employee says he turned down the $12,000 offer for sex.

It’s not clear if Zanzi has launched a lawsuit too, or if he’s just going public with his accusations.

Travolta has adamantly denied the first two allegations (he’s yet to publicly respond to this new one), and some evidence has been released which seems to suggests the Pulp Fiction star was in New York when the first incident is supposed to have taken place in LA. Whatever the truth of all this, Travolta certainly isn’t having a lot of fun at the moment.

Evidence of a pattern or just someone jumping on the bandwagon? We reported yesterday that an LA masseur had filed a $2 million lawsuit against John Travolta for sexual assault saying the actor touched his penis, asked for sex and masturbated in his presence. Now a second masseur has come forward making similar allegations and launching another lawsuit.

Once more the plaintiff is remaining anonymous, but according to the complaint (as reported by Radar Online), ‘“Travolta… indicated that he likes a lot of ‘glutes’ work, meaning a massage on his buttocks…While [the plantiff] was massaging near Travolta’s buttocks area, Travolta would open his legs and spread his butt cheeks open and had a full erection and would maneuver in a way to try to force Doe Plaintiff No. 2 to touch his anus.’

Radar says that the first complainant has commented that, “Having a second person come forward and say that he went through the same thing makes me feel vindicated.”

Although it’s still difficult to judge the truth of all this, with one complaint Travolta had a good chance of getting rid of it quickly and hoping everyone would forget it ever happened (adding it to the long list of allegations about his sexuality over the years), but two of them are more difficult to ignore.

There’s also the chance more complaints will now emerge, especially if this does turn out to be evidence of a pattern. At the moment though it’s impossible to tell what’s true and what’s not, although it should be added that the actor categorically denies all the allegations and says he can prove he wasn’t even in California when the first assault is said to have taken place.

UPDATE: A second allegation and lawsuit have now been added by a different masseur

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, there are going to be rumours you are gay – it’s just a fact of life. John Travolta has had rumours swirling around his sexuality for decades, with talk of secret boyfriends, that his marriage to Kelly Preston is a sham and various other things – none of which, it should be added, there has been much evidence for.

Now things have taken a step towards the stranger, with TMZ reporting that an unnamed LA masseur is suing Travolta for allegedly sexually molesting him. The lawsuit alleges Travolta booked a massage, then asked for sex, got rebuffed, volunteered to jerk the masseur off, touched his penis without permission, masturbated, and then claimed Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jews who like sexual favours.

Unsurprisingly, Travolta didn’t waste much time filing a counterclaim saying that the accusations are demonstrably false and defamatory. He also released a statement to People, saying “None of the events claimed in the suit ever occurred. The plaintiff, who refuses to give their name, knows that the suit is a baseless lie. It is for that reason that the plaintiff hasn’t been identified with a name even though it is required to do so. On the date when plaintiff claims John met him, John was not in California and it can be proved that he was on the East Coast.”

It does all seems rather unlikely, especially as the claimant is going for money rather than having Travolta tried in criminal court. It’s reminiscent of what happened with Tom Cruise, who’s also had gay rumours spinning around him for decades. However he has successfully sued those who’ve taken the rumours too far (in his eyes at least), winning a settlement against the Daily Express for saying his marriage to Nicole Kidman was a sham and against a gay porn actor called Chad Slater who said in an interview he’d had an affair with Cruise – it was later shown they’d never even met.

I don’t know whether Travolta is gay or not, but this claim does sound a little dodgy. We’ll have to wait and see if this turns into an actual court case, or if this is the last we hear about it. While most actors have learned to ignore talk about their sexuality, particularly as it isn’t harful to their career, when it reaches accusation of criminality, you can understand why Travolta is trying to shut this one down quickly. (Incidentally, there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that a-list stars have to deal with this sort of thing all the time, with people claiming all sorts of things about them, nearly all of which is handled privately without it ever reaching a court).