Alice Ripley Issues Apology But Denies Grooming Accusations: 'It's A Misinterpretation Of My Actions'

Broadway star Alice Ripley has denied grooming young fans with mental health issues — but apologized for befriending the women then ghosting them.

The Tony award-winning actress has been accused of having sexual conversations with girls as young as 13 and running a cult-like base of young fans. Four accusers who spoke with The Daily Beast claimed that Ripley's behavior was an abuse of power and that she allegedly sought out vulnerable fans, who were often queer.

In a statement to Page Six, however, Ripley vehemently denied "vile" accusations of grooming, saying the term has made her feel like a sex attacker, and insisted that she inflicted no such abuse on her fans.

"It is a misinterpretation of my actions to say I manipulated anyone, and more shockingly, that there was abuse," she wrote. "Yet here we are on this slippery slope because terms like ‘grooming’ are being thrown around … To be accused of this most vile thing, of which I am innocent, is crushing."

Ripley went on to say that performances of her 2009 musical "Next to Normal" — which earned her a Tony Award for best actress in a musical — "were truly safe spaces for people who had been touched by mental illness." She admitted that teen girls flocked to the show for repeat viewings, and many "imprinted their own mothers onto my character, [or] saw themselves in the daughter."

The actress claimed her interactions with fans only involved "a quick hello at the stage door" or a short meet and greet in her dressing room before and after shows. She would also have a "quick meal" with a fan "on rare occasions."

"Inevitably, they had their own fan dramas and jealousies, and I stayed out of that as much as I could," Ripley explained. "It’s now clear that a few of these fans had their feelings badly hurt because they received attention and then they felt 'ghosted'" by her lack of subsequent regard for them.

"I truly apologize for that," she continued. "I never meant to give anything but positive reinforcement and I’m sorry anyone felt slighted."

Ripley vehemently denied that she groomed any of the girls, saying, "grooming refers to sexual abuse of a minor, which is the most despicable act imaginable. It implies that I wanted something or asked for something, and that is not true."

This came days after TikToker Brie Lynn, 25, shared a video alleging that Ripley started grooming her when she was as young as 12 years old, posting at least six photos of her and the 57-year-old Broadway star.

"Growing up is realizing... I was groomed by a Tony award-winning Broadway actress," she wrote in the caption of her clip.

Lynn alleged that their first conversation, which happened when she was 12, was about the actress' photo in lingerie. When she was 13, Ripley allegedly told her that the first time they locked eyes she felt like her world stopped.

"You were having constant inappropriate interactions with me all while talking s--t about me behind my back," the TikTok user alleged.

Lynn also claimed that when one of Ripley's "insane fans" attempted to kill her, she was leaning on the celebrity to help her but "you left me there."

"And I've spent 10 years trying to convince myself it didn't happen, that I was in the wrong. You separated me from all of the friends I had made and you made me HATE the Broadway community I once loved," Lynn alleged. "And I never told ANYONE, but I know now that I was never the problem 'CAUSE I WAS A KID."

Ripley's other accusers alleged that she would shower them with compliments and tell them who they should associate with. They admitted that they competed for her attention. Some of them thought of her as a mother figure, while others claimed they fell in love with her. However, when they could no longer give her the attention she wanted from them, she allegedly discarded them, leaving them shattered.

"I felt like I was in a cult, the cult of Alice Ripley," "Liz," a New York City actress only identified by her middle name, told The Daily Beast. "She finds people who are desperate for love, and she figures out how to fill that hole and then manipulates them with it."