Gloria Rachel Allred (née Bloom; born July 3, 1941) is an American attorney known for taking high-profile and often controversial cases, particularly those involving feminist causes. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
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Early life and education
Gloria Rachel Bloom was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into a Jewish working-class family on July 3, 1941. Her father, Morris, worked as a salesman; her British-born mother, Stella, stayed at home and raised her child. After graduating from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, she attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she met her first husband, Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr. The couple had their only child, Lisa Bloom, on September 20, 1961, and divorced shortly after. Bloom is also an attorney and is best known as a former Court TV anchor.
Gloria Bloom moved back in with her parents and continued her education. In 1963, she earned a bachelor's degree in English, graduating with honors. Over strong objections from her professor, she wrote her honors thesis on black writers. She was employed in a number of occupations before she decided to become a teacher, taking a position at Benjamin Franklin High School. She began work on a graduate degree at New York University, in New York, NY, where she became interested in the civil rights movement. After earning a master's degree, she became a teacher and, in 1966, moved to Los Angeles, where she resided in Watts. She worked for the Los Angeles Teachers Association and taught at Jordan High School and Fremont High School.
In her autobiography she alleged how, during a vacation in Acapulco in 1966, she was raped at gunpoint. She discovered she was pregnant and sought an abortion. Abortion was illegal at the time, so Allred had a back-alley abortion. After undergoing the procedure, she began hemorrhaging and became infected, only recovering after being hospitalized. She did not report the rape, she said, because she did not think anyone would believe her.
In 1968, she married William Allred. She enrolled in Southwestern University School of Law and later transferred to Loyola University School of Law at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Allred graduated and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1975. Allred divorced her husband in 1987, retaining her married name.
Career
Legal
In a legal career that has spanned five decades, Allred has represented a wide variety of clients in civil rights suits that have involved sexual harassment, women's rights, wrongful termination, and employment discrimination. The New Republic has called her "a longtime master of the press conference". She often takes high-profile cases, using press conferences and appearances on television to much effect. Allred has represented many clients in suits against celebrities, including those against Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Herman Cain, David Boreanaz, Scott Lee Cohen, Anthony Weiner, Sacha Baron Cohen, Esai Morales, Roman Polanski, Josh Giddey, and R. Kelly.
Allred founded the firm Allred, Maroko, & Goldberg with fellow Loyola graduates Michael Maroko and Nathan Goldberg in January 1976. In 1979, Allred represented seven children and their parents in a lawsuit against the Sav-On Drugstore chain to stop the store from designating separate sections for boys' and girls' toys. In 1981, while California State Senator John G. Schmitz was presiding over hearings on outlawing abortion, Allred presented him with a chastity belt. Schmitz retaliated in a press release, calling her a "slick butch lawyeress". She sued him for libel, and eventually secured a settlement of $20,000 and an apology.
In 1985, Allred, along with Catharine MacKinnon, drafted a version of the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance for Los Angeles County. The legislation failed to pass the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In 1987, Allred took on the then all-male Friars Club of Beverly Hills, an exclusive private club, over its membership discrimination policies. The Friars Club eventually allowed Allred and five other women to use the club's health facilities, after Allred displayed early skills in effective use of the media.
Allred wrote a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee in 1992 asking them to investigate the actions of Oregon Senator Bob Packwood, who had been the subject of a newspaper article that detailed his history of sexual harassment. She kept pressure on the Committee and urged Packwood to release his diaries. The Committee eventually voted for his expulsion, and he resigned.
In 1983, Allred represented lesbian activists Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón in their lawsuit against the owner of a Los Angeles restaurant, Papa Choux, after he denied them service in a booth reserved for "romantic couples". While the lower court denied the two an injunction based on unlawful discrimination, the appellate court reversed the decision in Rolon v. Kulwitzky (1984), finding that the restaurant's behavior was discrimination prohibited under the Los Angeles Municipal Code. Rather than serve LGBT couples, the restaurant decided to eliminate the booths altogether, and took out newspaper ads inviting the public to a "Wake for Romance" event.
Entertainment
Allred co-hosted a radio talk show with Mark Taylor on KABC in Los Angeles for 14 years. She also served as a panelist on the 1990 revival of television game show To Tell the Truth. On March 28, 2000, Allred was parodied on the animated TV show Family Guy, by a character named "Gloria Ironbox", voiced by Candice Bergen, in an episode titled "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar". Allred appears as herself in the 2001 film Rat Race. On May 21, 2001, she was parodied on The Simpsons episode "Behind the Laughter", portraying a lawyer at the family table for Lisa Simpson. On June 27, 2001, she was parodied on South Park's episode "Cripple Fight".
On September 12, 2011, Allred debuted into the courtroom television genre with We the People with Gloria Allred, a show using improv actors to reenact fictitious case scenarios. In April 2013, Allred appeared on the reality show RuPaul's Drag Race (episode "The Final Three, Hunty"), interviewing and advising the final three contestants on selling themselves as "America's Next Drag Superstar". On November 27, 2016, Allred appeared as herself on the Epix TV show Graves.
Political life
Allred founded (incorporated in 1978) and is currently president of the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 1980, Allred held a fundraiser at Chippendales for WERLDEF.
Gloria Allred has been a member of the advisory board of Women's Day-USA, a California charity dedicated to promoting observation and recognition of March 8 as International Women's Day in the United States.
Personal life
Allred and her first husband, Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr., were married in 1960, and divorced in 1962. She and her second husband, William Allred, married in 1968 and divorced in 1987. Her only child, Lisa Bloom, was born in 1961.
Allred lives in Pacific Palisades, California and has a vacation home in Malibu, California.
She is Jewish, but does not consider herself particularly religious.
Criticism
Allred's public statements and behavior have resulted in criticism. In 2012, The Atlantic described her as "the ambulance chaser of feminism" after she defended two men involved in a sexual battery lawsuit against actor John Travolta. The Daily Beast journalist Tricia Romano also labeled her as a "publicity hound". The New Republic contributor Jeffrey Rosen also described Allred as "a longtime master of the press conference".
Allred's role, along with that of her daughter (attorney Lisa Bloom), in allegedly suppressing the voices of alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein, was chronicled in Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's 2019 book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.
California bar probe investigation
In 2025 The Wall Street Journal reported that several former clients alleged that Allred had used high-pressure tactics to coerce them into accepting settlements with broad nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) attached. Some of those NDAs barred the clients from discussing what had happened to them even with their therapists or spouses. They claim they were pressured into settling even when they were willing to go public with their stories and pursue the claim in court, and told that it was better for them not to discuss the claim as that would jeopardize any money they were likely to receive, money they were told they were lucky to be getting in the first place. They also signed retainer agreements that required any disputes between them and Allred's firm to be settled in confidential arbitration, a procedure Allred has been sharply critical of when used to settle sexual-assault claims. In June 2025, the California State Bar launched an investigation against Allred and her firm. Allred's controversial conduct has been compared to that of Tom Girardi and Michael Avenatti, two lawyers who have been convicted and disbarred.
Popular culture
In the 2001 film Rat Race, she portrayed herself in two brief scenes.
She also appeared in a brief fictional cameo as Lisa's lawyer in The Simpsons season 11 mockumentary episode, "Behind the Laughter".
Allred appeared in the Season 5 South Park episode "Cripple Fight", which aired on June 27, 2001. She successfully represented Big Gay Al in a discrimination case against the Boy Scouts of America.
In early 2018, Netflix debuted a documentary about the life and work of Allred, Seeing Allred, from directors Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain.
Works
Allred, Gloria; Rybak, Deborah Caulfield (2006). Fight Back and Win: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Injustice and How You Can Win Your Own Battles. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 978-0-06-073928-7. OCLC 62755633.
