Comedian Louis C.K. has released a statement confirming reports that he has sexually abused multiple women he worked with during his career.
“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,” C.K. wrote on Friday. “These stories are true.”
Below is the statement in its entirety:
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.
These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was O.K. 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.
I have no interest in evaluating the sincerity or propriety of C.K.’s statement. It matters that he’s acknowledged that the reports are true, allowing us to drop the legal requirement of tacking “alleged” and “accused” in our stories about his abuse. I can’t and won’t speak for everyone, but that’s the only thing that matters to me about C.K.’s statement.
Louis C.K. did it. These women told the truth. The vast majority of victims who come forward in these cases are telling the truth.
Since the Harvey Weinstein fallout, there has been a deluge of reports and confirmations of sexual assault. This week alone, Judge Roy Moore, a Republican nominee for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat, was accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl (he was in his 30s at the time), and Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick was accused of rape by a second woman. C.K. and Moore have commanded our attention because their violations were the most egregious of the most famous men to be outed this week.
This isn’t even getting into the volume of people within our social networks coming forward with stories about assaults they’ve suffered. This isn’t even getting into the friends, family members, colleagues and co-workers whose behavior we are either just learning about or are coming to terms with. This isn’t covering the pedestrian harassment that women have accepted for generations, harassment we’re finally calling out and reckoning with (I’m thinking very specifically of Danielle Young’s difficult, brave piece about her encounters with John Singleton and Jesse Jackson here).
The truth telling is necessary. The reckoning is overdue. But my God, does it hurt.
Read more at the New York Times.