EXCLUSIVE Cobra Kai villain Martin Kove looks disheveled on shirtless stroll as he dodges biting scandal questions
Martin Kove, who played the iconic villain of the Karate Kid films and sequel Cobra Kai series, was spotted on Friday for the first time since his costar accused him of assault.
He was seen looking disheveled while out on a walk in photos obtained by DailyMail.com, and he didn't respond to questions about the incident, in which his Cobra Kai costar Alicia Hannah-Kim accused him of biting her at a fan convention last week.
The 78-year-old actor and martial artist — who admitted to biting Hannah-Kim in police bodycam footage of the aftermath obtained by DailyMail.com — created a bizarre image as he puffed on a cigar while taking a stroll in Franklin, Tennessee, which is near Nashville.
Kove was shirtless for his walk, though he wore a pair of weathered gray athletic shorts and black trainers.
He appeared to be having an animated chat on his phone while walking.
The strange sighting comes as Kove has been engulfed in a sexual harassment scandal after his conduct on the set of Cobra Kai was investigated by Sony last year.
Kove has adamantly denied the accusation, telling Deadline on Thursday: 'It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.'
The accusations resurfaced in the wake of the shocking biting incident last week.
Kove, who played John Kreese in the Netflix drama, ignited outrage when he sank his teeth into Hannah-Kim, 37, while attending the Washington State Summer Con in Puyallup, Washington, last weekend.
The actress reported to a police officer that Kove bit her so hard he almost drew blood, causing her to scream in pain, and he offered up a strange justification for the assault in police bodycam footage.
Hannah-Kim shouted at the Karate Kid villain: 'You cannot bite people, that is not OK!
'You have left a mark on my body, which in your 80-year-old brain, you think is play,' she continued.
'Sir, were you raised in a ditch? You yelled at me! You had the audacity! How dare you, sir.'
After Hannah-Kim and her husband, actor Sebastian Roche, confronted Kove following the incident, he reportedly became 'furious and outraged and visibly angry.'
The 78-year-old actor and martial artist created a bizarre image as he puffed on a cigar while taking a stroll in Franklin, Tennessee, near Nashville. Kove was shirtless for his walk but wore weathered gray athletic shorts and black trainers while chatting on his phone
The strange sighting comes as Kove has been engulfed in a sexual harassment scandal after his conduct on the set of Cobra Kai was investigated by Sony last year
Kove has adamantly denied the accusation, telling Deadline on Thursday: 'It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.' The accusations resurfaced in the wake of the shocking biting incident last week
Sources told Deadline that she complained that he had been 'leering' and 'verbally overt' toward her on the Atlanta set of the adapted film franchise. In response to the investigation, producers reportedly dressed down Kove and urged him to remain in his trailer and apologize
Kove was filmed apologizing for getting 'angry' and blamed his actions on being overtly playful with Hannah-Kim because he portrayed a male sensei on screen.
He told police: 'I tried to say that, and I, you know, to try and find her the moment I arrived in the green room just to say, "I'm sorry, darling, I apologize and I didn't mean to hurt you," you know, because we play all the time, we pop, we hit, we do stuff all the time because she's a female sensei.
'I'm a male sensei. We have a lot of scenes together and we have a lot of fun.
'I really apologize. I was just playing because we're very playful together, and I bit down too hard.'
The officer responded: 'So it's emotions. We all have them and sometimes they get the better of us.'
Hannah-Kim showed off faint teeth marks on her upper left bicep and told police: 'I would like it to go on his record, on the record between me and him, so that he cannot ever do this to me again.'
When officers informed Kove he had committed a crime by biting his costar, Kove responded that he 'didn't interpret the bite as a crime.'
Kim then exploded at Kove, saying: 'Its not interpreted as a crime! He can take you away in handcuffs . You committed a crime, that's why we're here!
'See that, those are your teeth you think that's OK? It's not okay.
Kove said: 'I understand that I'm ashamed of my behavior. I'm ashamed that I did that and I would, I would like you to accept my apology and you know me long enough to know that my essence is not a vindictive violent essence at all.
'If anything, we have just lots of fun together,' he added.
Kim said: 'I came to you in friendship and I extended I had a friendship like, "Hey mate, don't do that." And what you gave me was rage.
'That's what I know. That's why I have rage now because you gave it to me.
'Do you understand that? Can you deny that when we approached you that it was completely calm and I was like, hey, you just can't bite me.
'I didn't lose my s**t 'til you got rageful at me, which only gives me rage back.'
Kove said: 'I — I didn't intend your rage and I'm sorry you picked up on it. It wasn't, I know what I did.'
Kove was informed that Kim is not pressing charges but is warned to never repeat his actions.
Kove was banished from the convention, and recently broke his silence on the incident in a statement to Deadline.
'I deeply regret and apologize for my actions regarding the incident with Alicia [Hannah-Kim], a genuinely kind and wonderful person who didn't deserve to be put in this position,' Kove said in a statement from Jaffe & Company PR & Crisis Management.
'I've always respected her and considered her a highly professional and talented co-worker on Cobra Kai,' he added, before addressing the incident.
'I was being playful in the moment but went too far and there is absolutely no excuse for my behavior,' Kove continued.
'I regret my actions for which I take full responsibility for what I did, and again I apologize to her and her husband. I'm committed to learning from this and it will never happen again,' he concluded.
The report from the incident revealed that Kove did apologize to Hannah-Kim and her husband Roche, though he has since done so publicly.
Photos were also taken of Hannah-Kim's arm, which showed a, 'very noticeable bite mark on her arm that was already turning blue and bruising.'
Kove was told to leave the convention, and the officer instructed him never to do something like that again.
Hannah-Kim played Kim Da-Eun, a powerful South Korean sensei who is also the granddaughter of Kim Sun-Yung, the master who taught taught Kove's character John Kreese in his youth.
Kove played the Cobra Kai sensei Kreese in the 1984 classic The Karate Kid, as well as in its 1986 and 1989 sequels, The Karate Kid Part II and The Karate Kid Part III.
He reprised the role for Cobra Kai, which is set 34 years after the events of the original Karate Kid film.
The series originally aired on YouTube Red for its first two seasons before moving to Netflix.
The show enjoyed a popular run over six seasons and followed Kreese's old student Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). The series concluded in February of this year.
Kove will next be seen in Killing Mary Sue with Sean Patrick Flannery, Dermot Mulroney and Jason Mewes, while Hannah-Kim is filming the South Korean TV series The North Star.
In the wake of the biting incident, a past allegation of sexual harassment against Kove — which he has denied — resurfaced.
A female extra on Cobra Kai reportedly said Kove made her feel uncomfortable on set with his behavior, and sources told Deadline that she complained that he had been complained Kove had been 'leering' and 'verbally overt' toward her on the Atlanta set of the adapted film franchise.
The woman then complained to producers, and Sony subsequently launched an investigation into the alleged incident.
DailyMail.com has contacted Kove's representatives for comment but hasn't received a response.
In response to the investigation, producers reportedly dressed down Kove and urged him to remain in his trailer between takes.
They also alleged said he should apologize to the offended extra, though it's unclear if he took them up on that advice.
In the wake of Kove's biting incident, a bizarre story from 2013 that the former SNL star Bill Hader told on Marc Maron's WTF podcast about his brief time working with Kove resurfaced.
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And every point you lose, you f------ take it.' The irony was that he had never acted this way in team sport before, even when flying the flag for Switzerland at the Davis Cup. It illustrated the hollowness of the enterprise, with Federer trying to make a spectacle that essentially meant nothing look as if it meant everything. It is the fundamental problem with the Laver Cup, as it rolls on to San Francisco in September: that for its pretensions to be sport of substance, it serves little purpose beyond burnishing Federer's cult of personality. The pity is that he still resists any shift into television commentary, where he could offer a degree of technical expertise unparalleled in the booth. He has admitted that he did consider it, only shelving the plan when he realised how critical he would have to be of the players. 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