Ranae Shrider Denies Abuse Claim, Rips Verne Troyer

Verne Troyer's ex is firing back at the 2'8" actor after he accused her of emotional and physical abuse in a $20 million lawsuit filed yesterday.

"This lawsuit is ridiculous and riddled with lie upon lie from Verne Troyer and his camp," Holly Bannon, a rep for Ranae Shrider, said in a statement.

"The claim is, in our opinion, a shamelessly transparent attempt to generate as much publicity as he can from his less than average career in the wake of his most recent failure in The Love Guru."

Now that's a low blow. Even more so than the kind she's used to.

Thursday, lawyers for Verne Troyer said he feared for his safety after Shrider beat him, dropped him and, another time, held him against his will.

Troyer's lawyer said, in what may be the celebrity quote of the year: "When you pick up a 2'8" human being and throw him to the floor, it hurts."

But Ranae Shrider's rep says it's all bogus.

"The only abuse that ever occurred in their household was that of emotional abuse inflicted upon Ranae and her dog Lacy on the occasions when he hit Ranae and her dog with his 'reaching sticks' or kicked them when having one of his drunken rages," Bannon said. "This abuse certainly has not seemed to affect his recent round of interviews or his golf swing over the weekend. Is this not the same man who is renowned as a professional stuntman in all his movies?"

The suit comes after Ranae Shrider admitted she had leaked a clip of a sex tape she made with Verne Troyer. The actor settled a suit filed against a celebrity sex tape broker that will prevent its distribution.

Verne Troyer recently opened up to celebrity news magazines about the humiliation he experienced after the sex tape footage surfaced.

"I put all the trust in her," Troyer said. "She kept the tape in her camera on top of the closet where I couldn't even reach it!"