In May of 2015, comedian Louis C.K. was the subject of some appalling accusations regarding his behavior toward young female comics.
A male stand-up who was identified only as “Jason” informed Gawker that after hearing numerous accounts of C.K. sexually harassing the women he crossed paths with in a professional context, he decided to take the matter up with revered comic directly:
Jason says he sent C.K. an email reading, “Hey could you please stop sexually assaulting female comics? It’s really uncomfortable to have to ask your hero to stop taking his penis out in front of uninterested and frightened girls, but such is life.”
He says C.K. responded within minutes asking Jason for his phone number so that the two of them could discuss the matter.
During the conversation, Jason claims, C.K. offered nothing in the way of defense or clarification, and instead seemed to be “sizing up” his disillusioned fan to see if he was the type who would go to the press.
Shortly after that story went public, comedian Jen Kirkman told a tale about a fellow who sounded very much like C.K. – and whose harassment of women had apparently become something of an open secret in certain circles:
“He’s a known perv,” Kirkman said on her podcast.
“And there’s a lockdown on talking about him. His guy friends are standing by him, and you cannot say a bad thing about him.”
Amidst speculation that she was referring to C.K., Kirkman deleted her podcast and stated that she won’t discuss the matter any further.
For obvious reasons, many took her actions as confirmation that she was indeed outing C.K. as a sexual predator.
The scandal quickly disappeared from tabloids, and C.K. never talked about it in interviews – until this week.
Asked about the allegations in a recent interview with Vulture, C.K. had this to say:
“Well, you can’t touch stuff like that. There’s one more thing I want to say about this, and it’s important: If you need your public profile to be all positive, you’re sick in the head.
“I do the work I do, and what happens next I can’t look after. So my thing is that I try to speak to the work whenever I can. Just to the work and not to my life.”
As many have pointed out, that’s not exactly a denial.
Obviously it’s far from a confession, but more and more, the situation is reminding us of the slow unraveling of another beloved comic’s reputation …
