“Cobra Kai” actor Alicia Hannah-Kim scolded co-star Martin Kove for biting her at a fan convention on Sunday as a cop recorded the intense confrontation on his body camera.
The video obtained by NBC from police in Puyallup, Washington, shows a shaken Hannah-Kim not buying Kove’s defense that he was “just playing.”
“You cannot bite people. That is not OK,” the officer chided Kove outside the Summer Con event where the cast of the Netflix martial-arts series appeared on Sunday.
“That is assault!” Hannah-Kim said.
Hannah-Kim, 37, accused Kove, 78, of biting her arm while greeting her, according to a police informational report. He nearly drew blood, made her scream in pain and then kissed the wound, she alleged. The officer at the scene confirmed her arm had a bite mark that was “turning blue and bruising.”
In the video, the officer warned Kove that it was up to Hannah-Kim if she wanted to press charges, and he inquired why Kove bit her.
“I really apologize. I was just playing because we’re very playful together, and I bit down too hard,” Kove answered.
“No, we do not play like that,” Hannah-Kim snapped back.
“I apologize,” Kove said.
“No!” Hannah-Kim interjected. “Right now, Martin, I am really pissed. You have left a mark on my body, which in your 80-year-old brain you think is play,” she said. “Sir, were you raised in a ditch?”
She then reprimanded him for having the “audacity” to get angry when she confronted him initially about his actions. “How dare you,” she said.
Kove said he got mad because he knew he was “indulging in something improper.”
Kove reprised his “Karate Kid” movie role of ruthless sensei John Kreese for the Netflix spinoff while Hannah-Kim also played a troubled instructor.
Although she declined to press charges, Hannah-Kim told the officer in the clip, “I would like it to go on his record, and I would like it to go on the record between me and him, so that he cannot ever do this to me again.”
Kove later issued a longer mea culpa.
“I deeply regret and apologize for my actions regarding the incident with Alicia, a genuinely kind and wonderful person who didn’t deserve to be put in this position,” he said in a statement reported by TMZ on Tuesday
“I’ve always respected her and considered her a highly professional and talented co-worker on ‘Cobra Kai.’ I was being playful in the moment but went too far and there is absolutely no excuse for my behavior.”
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