Sean Penn DENIES wild rumor he beat Madonna with a baseball bat and insists she is 'someone I love'... while admitting one of their fights ended with SWAT bursting into their house
Sean Penn has once again denied the wild rumor that he physically abused his ex-wife Madonna, insisting: 'She's someone I love.'
During their turbulent marriage in the 1980s, sensational claims surfaced that he tied her to a chair on one occasion and struck her with a baseball bat on another.
Both Madonna and Sean have staunchly denied he was ever violent with her, and she even testified on his behalf in a defamation lawsuit over the allegations.
Now Sean, 63, has cleared the air on the issue again - while admitting one of their marital squabbles resulted in a SWAT team arriving at their home.
Madonna supposedly called the police saying she was anxious about guns being in the house, and SWAT then burst onto the premises, smashing the windows and putting Sean 'in handcuffs,' he told the New York Times.
Sean Penn has once again denied the wild rumor that he physically abused his ex-wife Madonna, insisting: 'She's someone I love'; pictured last week
Both Madonna and Sean have staunchly denied he was ever violent with her, and she even testified on his behalf in a defamation lawsuit over the allegations; pictured 1988
'I had a freaking SWAT team come into my house,' Sean recalled in a new interview with the newspaper's longtime columnist Maureen Dowd.
'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 said.
Sean and Madonna tied the knot in 1985, starting a rollercoaster marriage in which she filed for divorce in 1987, reconciled with him, then left him for good in 1989.
Eventually he got wind of the rumors that he had 'trussed her up like a turkey,' he said. 'I didn’t know what "trussed up" meant, first.'
After he enjoyed a 'lovely night' with a later girlfriend, he woke up the next morning, went out for a cigarette and found himself faced with her 'looking at me like I killed her dog' and asking 'about this hitting Madonna in the head with a baseball bat.'
Sean 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.'
He and Madonna now enjoy an amicable rapport, partly because, he said: 'It turns out it’s a lot quicker to repair a friendship after divorce if there are not kids involved.'
Sean had a more difficult time mending fences with his second ex-wife Robin Wright, with whom he shares his daughter Dylan, 33, and son Hopper, 30.
Sean and Madonna tied the knot in 1985, starting a rollercoaster marriage in which she filed for divorce in 1987, reconciled with him, then left him for good in 1989; pictured 1987
He and Madonna now enjoy an amicable rapport, partly because, he said: 'It turns out it’s a lot quicker to repair a friendship after divorce if there are not kids involved'; pictured 2016
Now Sean, 63, has cleared the air about the rumors again - while admitting one of their marital squabbles resulted in a SWAT team arriving at their home; pictured 1986
Madonna and Sean are pictured in New York in 1986 after a rehearsal for their play Goose And Tom Tom, which also starred Harvey Keitel
'It took Robin and I quite a while. There was a lot of drama. Much more important to repair it if there are kids involved, but no easy swing, right?' he said.
In 2015, Madonna testified that Sean never abused her, supporting his $10 million defamation lawsuit against Empire creator Lee Daniels.
The fracas began after Empire star Terrance Howard admitted in an interview that he had slapped his wife in front of their children.
Amid the explosive controversy that resulted, Lee sprang to Terrance's defense, arguing that he had never done what 'Marlon Brando or Sean Penn' did.
Sean sued Lee over the remark and Madonna submitted an affidavit on his behalf, specifically denying the allegations about the baseball bat and being tied up.
'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,' she asserted.
The lawsuit eventually ended with a settlement, in which Lee was forced to issue a public apology for his original comments and also had to make a donation to Sean's disaster relief organization CORE.
