Rick Santorum says he doesn’t recall the tense interaction with actor Eric Stonestreet that the “Modern Family” star describes as occurring at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

In an interview last week with “HuffPost Live,” Stonestreet said he was surprised when Santorum asked to take a picture with him at a pre-party.  On the ABC comedy “Modern Family,” the actor, who is heterosexual, portrays a gay man; co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who is gay, plays his partner.

Stonestreet said he refused the photo because of the former Pennsylvania senator’s opposition to same-sex marriage.  “It was at a time when [Santorum] was publicly saying, ‘Gay marriage, gay marriage’ and I’m like, ‘You know, I can’t do it,’ ” he  said.

Last night, though, after a screening at The Heritage Foundation of his new film, “One Generation Away,” Santorum didn’t have the same recollection of the evening in question.  This year’s dinner was held May 3. “Here’s what happened,” the former Republican presidential candidate told The Daily Signal:

I’ve never watched ‘Modern Family’ and I don’t know him. I’ve been to the White House Correspondents Dinner a couple of times and basically, I’m the photographer for my daughters. They go around and they recognize people, so I take their pictures with them. I had my picture taken with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — I thought that was sort of a cool thing, get your picture taken with a guy 7-foot-4. But other than that, I don’t think I had my picture taken. So he may have interpreted it that way, and that’s fine.

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Stonestreet might have misinterpreted the situation, Santorum added:

We met a lot of people and very well could have gone up to him and [been] introduced to him with our daughters. He might have assumed that we all wanted a picture, but I was taking pictures of them;  I generally wasn’t getting my picture taken.

Asked if he would object to having a photograph taken of himself with someone with whom he disagreed, Santorum didn’t answer directly while acknowledging he gets the “toe the line” mentality:

I understand, now that I’m in the world of Hollywood somewhat, it’s an uncomfortable thing because there’s a certain level of expectation that you have to sort of toe the line. The more you can show you’re toeing the line, I guess the better it is for your career.