Seagal claims he knew Bruce Lee! Why do I doubt that?

[Seagal1969]

A few days ago Steven Seagal was on the MMA Hour. Famous MMA reporter Ariel Helwani asked him several questions regarding MMA, Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen etc...

At the end of the interview Helwani asked Seagal whether he knew Bruce Lee.

Seagal replied he knew Bruce Lee through James Coburn and that he met him several times at Lee´s house.

Immediately I asked myself whether this could be true or not.

Let´s analyse it. Famous actor James Coburn was Seagal´s martial arts student as we all know. There´s the famous interview on youtube in which Seagal accompanied Coburn on the Merv Griffin show and did a martial arts demonstration. That was back in 1982.

Bruce Lee however, died in 1973. I asked myself how can Seagal knew Bruce Lee when he was only 21 years old at the time?

At the time Seagal was no master in Aikido. How can he knew James Coburn?

In my opinion James Coburn was later his Martial Arts student but never at the beginning of the seventy´s.

Somehow I doubt that Seagal knew Bruce Lee.

What do you all think about it?

 

[ORANGATUANG]

And your point is? I think that Steven would have no reason to lie about some thing like this ..so what if he was just 21 how do we know he wasnt getting any tips from the late and great Bruce Lee ...thats what i think any way

 

[Eliot]

I can confirm that Seagal at least knew the Family of Bruce Lee. Steven Seagal was confirmed at the funeral of Brandon Lee. Also Steven Seagal was friends with Sam Hui (famous singer) and a brother of sorts to Bruce Lee. The age gap only shows the superior talent that must have been shown by Steven Seagal to be acknowledged by Bruce Lee.

 

[Tommy Boy]

I've been wondering this one too. Just to clarify, I'm not out there to "expose" Seagal as a liar or anything. It is a well known fact that sometimes he has stretched the truth in his stories - maybe in order to make a point or cut to the chase (in a manner of speaking).
Seagal has, in many a interview, stated that he knew Bruce Lee namely through James Coburn. He was only a 21 at the time of Lee's death and like "Seagal 1969" mentioned, it is highly unlikely that Cobrun was a student of an american teenager who at the time lived in Japan and was not yet the martial arts master he would become years later.
Now of course it's somewhat plausible that Bruce Lee had heard of this young and propably very promising aikido-student in the late 60's. The martial arts circles (in California) were rather small back then and many of the masters of that era were linked together - one way or another. For example the late Ed Parker was a friend of both Lee and Seagal, so there could be something there.

Another interesting point in the quite recent Michael "the Voice" Schiavello/Steven Seagal-interview was when Seagal said that he and Lee exchanged stories about their half-asian/half-caucasian sons who were, according to Seagal, about the same age. Well that just doesn't seem quite right since Kentaro was born in 1975 and Brandon in 1965. Thus Kentaro was not only 10 years junior to Brandon but born two years AFTER Bruce Lee's untimely death.
Seagal was however present in Brandon's funeral and according to some spectators, raised a few eyebrows when posing as a close friend of the Lee-family. My bet is that Seagal's closest contact to Lees was Dan Inosanto - not that there's absolutely anything wrong with that.
Like I said before, I'm not on a witch hunt to expose truth behind Seagal's anecdotes. I hope we can all agree that his life is filled with well documented achievements and feats that - at least in my books - warrant a random white lie here and there. It's these very speculations and controversies that make Steven Seagal, well, Steven Seagal.

Peace y'all and happy holidays!

 

[FightSpirit]

I don't think Steven Seagal had met Bruce Lee. As we all know that Bruce spent most of the time in Hong Kong and not America in the early 70s. James Coburn for sure knew and worked closely with both Bruce Lee and Steven Seagal but he also never mentioned once that they both knew each other.

But since both Lee and Coburn are no longer around, so Steven Seagal could even say he had trained with Bruce Lee. Who knows? To me, at least this is highly unlikely.

Many people want to attach to the fame of Bruce Lee as they thought that could draw themselves more public attention.