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).