Louis C.K. Issues Statement On Sexual Harassment: “There Is Nothing About This That I Forgive Myself For”

Anthony D'Alessandro
·4 min read

Here is Louis C.K’s response in full to yesterday’s New York Times piece in which five women accused him of sexual misconduct:

I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.

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These stories are true.  At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them.   The power I had over these women is that they admired me.  And I wielded that power irresponsibly.

I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.

I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.

There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for.  And I have to reconcile it with who I am.  Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.

I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.

The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else.  And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with who’s professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.

I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.

I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want.  I will now step back and take a long time to listen.

Thank you for reading.

In the wake of The New York Times expose yesterday, The Orchard pulled the release of C.K.’s film I Love You, Daddy which premiered at TIFF and which they spent a reported $5M to acquire. The pic’s premiere was, of course, cancelled yesterday as well. HBO pull C.K. from their Nov. 18 Night of Too Many Stars special and the pay TV network also pulled all of the comedian’s content from their HBO On-Demand service. Netflix opted not to move ahead with a second C.K. stand-up special they were producing, however, the comedian’s existing specials on Netflix, 2017 as well as  the 2015 Live at the Comedy Store, which Netflix picked up last August, will remain on the streaming service. FX, C.K.’s home for the last eight years, released a statement yesterday that his situation was “under review”. C.K. is a six-time Emmy winner across his FX series Louie as well as a number of stand-up specials and writing on The Chris Rock Show. 

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