Complaints against Brown, who was Donald Trump’s first ambassadorial appointment after coming into office, surfaced after a trip to Samoa 
 
 The US ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown has admitted he has been investigated over allegations he made inappropriate comments on his inaugural trip to Samoa, of which he is also the US representative. 
 
 Brown told New Zealand media on Wednesday he wanted to address “innuendo and rumour” about his visit to Samoa in July to celebrate 50 years of the peace corps in the country. 
 
 Brown – speaking with his wife, Gail Huff, by his side – confirmed he was the subject of an official administration inquiry by the US state department, which sent investigators to Wellington to look into what took place on the trip. 
 
 Brown said the official complaints related to comments he had made at a party in the Samoan capital, Apia, where he told attendees they looked “beautiful” and could make hundreds of dollars working in the hospitality industry in the US. Brown and Huff said they had “no idea” the comments would be regarded as offensive. 
 
 “I was told by my people that you’re not Scott Brown from New Hampshire any more, you’re an ambassador, and you have to be culturally aware of different cultures and sensitivities,” Brown said. 
 
 “We are in a different culture: even though we all speak English, sometimes when we say one thing it means the complete different thing.” 
 
 Brown went on to say “politics is a blood sport” and there were a lot of people at the event who did not like US president Donald Trump. Brown was Trump’s first ambassadorial appointment after he took office. 
 
 Huff said the “takeaway” from the incident was: “We are going to be very, very careful about what we say and how it’s perceived.” 
 
 The Guardian understands that complaints against Brown came from two serving female members of the peace corps. 
 
 
 
 The Guardian first contacted the US state department in Washington, the US embassy in Wellington and the US high commission in Samoa in August, requesting details of the ambassador’s trip to Samoa and comment on the complaints. All requests have gone unanswered. 
 
 On Wednesday a spokesperson for the US embassy in Wellington said: “Ambassador Brown has nothing to add to the comments he made in this afternoon’s interview.” ||||| WASHINGTON — Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros claims in a new lawsuit that former senator Scott Brown made sexually inappropriate comments to her while on set and put his hands on her lower waist. 
 
 Tantaros, who says she complained to superiors about Brown’s conduct, outlines her complaint in a lawsuit filed Monday in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The complaint, which also includes accusations of harassment by former network head Roger Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly, portrays a corporate culture at Fox News that tolerated sexual misconduct. 
 
 “Fox News masquerades as a defender of traditional family values,” she says in the suit. “But behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny.” 
 
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 Brown is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which lists five defendants, as well as the Fox News Network. He dismissed the accusations as false in an e-mail to the Globe within minutes of learning the details of Tantaros’s complaints. 
 
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 “Her statement about our limited on-air, green-room interactions are false,” Brown said. “There were never any circumstances of any kind whatsoever in which I had any interaction with her or any other employee at Fox, outside the studio.” 
 
 Andrea Tantaros. 
 
 Tantaros asserts halfway through the 37-page suit that Brown, while appearing on her show “Outnumbered” in August 2015, “made a number of sexually inappropriate comments to Tantaros on set.” 
 
 She claims that he told her, “in a suggestive manner,” that she “would be fun to go to a nightclub with.” 
 
 “After the show was over, Brown snuck up behind Tantaros while she was purchasing lunch and put his hands on her lower waist,” the lawsuit says. “She immediately pulled back, telling Brown to ‘stop.’ ” 
 
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 Brown told the Globe that all of his interactions and contacts with Tantaros were in the New York studio, “and always in full view of all staff, personnel, and talent.” Any chance encounters at a restaurant or other public places were “professional and cordial,” he said. 
 
 “In the three years I have been working there, I treat all people there the same, whether they be male or female,” Brown said. “In addition, I don’t go to clubs.” 
 
 Prior to joining Fox News, Tantaros had served as press secretary to the Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives and worked as a communications director for Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. 
 
 Brown, a Republican, represented Massachusetts as senator for three years, beginning in 2010 after beating Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in a special election to succeed the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Democrat Elizabeth Warren defeated Brown in 2012. Brown then moved to Rye, N.H., where he ran again for US Senate and lost in 2014. 
 
 Prior to joining Fox News in February 2013 as an on-air contributor, Brown was known mostly for crisscrossing Massachusetts in his truck as he campaigned for Senate. He is a former state senator, and, as was widely reported during his campaigns, posed nude as a Cosmopolitan magazine centerfold in 1982. 
 
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 Brown is married to Gail Huff, a television correspondent for NH1 News in Concord, N.H. The couple recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and renewed their vows. 
 
 “Scott’s a family man. I’ve seen that his respect toward women stem from his strong relationship with his loving wife Gail and their two accomplished daughters,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who had been a consultant on Brown’s races. “Scott and Gail operate as a team. She has as much say in his professional life as he does.” 
 
 Williams, while unfamiliar with the details of the lawsuit, said, “In my interactions with Senator Brown, he’s always been respectful and professional with women who have worked with him and for him.” 
 
 In interviews Tuesday, women who had worked for Brown noted that he named a number of female leaders to his campaign and Senate staff; they said he always treated them with respect. A top-level Brown staffer who did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the topic said that she, too, was shocked by Tantaros’s allegations. 
 
 “He would be the first person to bust somebody’s head open if someone treated his daughters or his wife in any way that was inappropriate,” she said. 
 
 She pointed out that Brown himself was sexually abused as a child by a camp counselor, which Brown revealed in his 2011 autobiography, “Against All Odds.” 
 
 “As a survivor of sexual abuse, I would never perpetuate language or actions as described in Fox complaint,” Brown wrote Tuesday afternoon on Twitter. “Actions referenced are fabricated.” 
 
 His former staffer remembered one previous accusation of harassment that was later withdrawn, which she discovered while vetting Brown during one of his campaigns. 
 
 The woman who accused him, Jennifer Firth, filed a civil defamation suit in 2000 alleging that Brown had harassed her two years prior when she volunteered to work on his campaign for Massachusetts state representative. Firth accused Brown of trying to defame and humiliate her after she confronted him. Brown said at the time that Firth was the one harassing and stalking him; both had served on the Wrentham Board of Selectmen. 
 
 Firth did not return requests for comment. Her attorney at the time, Harvey Schwartz, said in an e-mail to the Globe Tuesday that he withdrew the case almost immediately after it was filed when Brown’s attorneys provided him with information that caused him to question the information Firth had provided him. 
 
 “As a result of receiving that information I concluded that it would be unethical for me to continue with the case,” Schwartz said. “Whatever the merits of the present case, I don’t believe the former case has any relevance.” 
 
 On Tuesday, Brown said that prior to learning he was named in Tantaros’s lawsuit, he was never made aware of any issues at Fox and that his schedule for appearances has never changed. 
 
 Tantaros claims that she immediately met with senior news executive Bill Shine to complain, asking Shine to make sure Brown would never be booked on the show again. She alleges that Shine told her he would address the situation, but Brown continued to be booked on her show. 
 
 Tantaros’s lawsuit also details “a nightmare of sexual harassment by Ailes,” who she says regularly asked her and other female on-air personalities to “turn around so I can get a good look at you” and retaliated against her for rebuffing his sexual advances. 
 
 Her complaint pointedly noted that it was “not just about Ailes; it also gives life to the saying that ‘the fish stinks from the head.’ For Ailes did not act alone.” 
 
 Tantaros’s lawsuit comes on the heels of explosive sexual harassment allegations by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, which prompted Ailes to resign. Following the ouster of Ailes, Shine is now the copresident of Fox News. 
 
 A Fox News spokeswoman said the network does not comment on pending litigation. 
 
 Tracy Jan can be reached at tracy.jan@globe.com . Follow her on Twitter @TracyJan
– The US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa is blaming the "blood sport" of politics for the kerfuffle he's in over comments he made while visiting the latter islands. Per the New York Times, witnesses told local media that former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown acted "obnoxiously" at a July Peace Corps event in Apia. Brown confirmed Wednesday to New Zealand's Stuff that there had indeed been an "administrative inquiry" by the US State Department into his behavior and that he'd been warned to be more "culturally aware." The Guardian reports the complaints apparently came from two female Peace Corps members. The remarks revolve around him telling guests at the event they looked "beautiful," as well as noting to a waitress she could make "hundreds of dollars" if she were a waitress in America. But while Brown says he did compliment guests on their appearance, he says he'd seen them before the event looking "dirty and grungy" and that they'd cleaned up so nice he felt compelled to compliment them. He also says he made comments about both women and men, and that his wife, Gail Huff, made similar remarks. As for the waitress, he says he was simply noting she was doing a "great job," per the Times. Why he thinks the complaints against him are politically motivated: He's a Trump supporter said to have the president's ear. "At this event there were a lot of people [who] didn't like [Trump]," he told Stuff. "Sadly, it's politics, and it is what it is." He did note, however, he'll try to be more culturally sensitive in the future. Huff says the experience "has been a real learning curve" and that she was by her husband's side at all times and "literally saw nothing. It's absurd."