Jim Cummings, who has played Winnie the Pooh since 1988, has been accused by his ex-wife, Stephanie Cummings, of sexual assault and animal abuse.
According to documents obtained by The Blast, Stephanie accused her ex-husband of engaging "in physical, sexual and emotional abuse including but not limited to death threats, rape, and various sexual deviant behavior forced upon me without my consent' since their divorce in 2011. The two have been fighting regarding custody and support payments for their two children. Stephanie claims Jim has withheld payments and demanded sex "in exchange for meeting his support obligations.”
Stephanie claims to have obtained two restraining orders against Jim for separate instances of domestic violence. She recounted one, which The Blast says started with him coming over to her home and slapping "her on the buttocks" before forcing "himself on her in front of their 4-year-old daughter."
“He later came up behind me,” she continued, “grabbed my arm, spun me around, and forcefully put his hand on the back of my neck and kissed me while holding me in place against the wall.” She described herself as feeling "humiliated and degraded" by the incident. She says she later reported the altercation to the L.A. County Sheriff.
Jim recounts the incident differently, saying he was "joking and laughing" with Stephanie and that he "touched her slightly on the butt." He claims they hugged consensually and that "the whole incident was happy," adding that his ex-wife, "who is much taller than I am, a large woman, made no objection to anything."
She also claims Jim raped her in 2013, an incident she filed a police report over. She provided details regarding several other instance of sexual misconduct, including inappropriate comments made to their two children about her breasts.
Stephanie also put forward allegations of animal abuse, talking about a time when, in response to a dog urinating in the house, Jim “took the dog and placed it inside a metal bucket outside of the house on a day which it was over 100 degrees, then left it there for a long time... The dog came close to dying.”
Jim provided his own version of events, saying, “There was an incident where I put a ‘tub’ (not a metal bucket) over a dog to isolate it briefly as a form of discipline to its behavior at our vet’s suggestion, and unfortunately I forgot the dog was there for a while, but then of course I released it.” He said he then took his dog to the vet, where it was deemed healthy.
Stephanie recounted another incident of animal abuse, alleging Jim had “taken a broom and hit the puppy so hard that he shattered the puppy’s hip necessitating surgery.”
In addition to Winnie the Pooh, Cummings also played Darkwing Duck in that character's titular series and Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog. He's lent his voice to such video games as Mass Effect 2, World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.