Comedian Louis C.K. has expressed his remorse after confessing the allegations of sexual misconduct against him are all true.
Five women came forward to accuse the funnyman of masturbating in front of them as part of a New York Times expose, published on Thursday (09Nov17) – the same night the New York premiere of the Horace and Pete star’s new film I Love You, Daddy was abruptly cancelled.
Louis C.K. did not address the allegations at the time, but he has now issued a lengthy statement via his representative Lewis Kay apologizing for his bad behavior.
The statement, issued to the New York Post’s Page Six, reads:
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.
In the expose, comediennes Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov claimed the funnyman got “completely naked, and started masturbating” in front of them in his hotel room in 2002, while Rebecca Corry also alleged that Louis had asked her if he could “masturbate in front of me” while they were filming a TV pilot in 2005 – a story corroborated by former Friends star Courteney Cox, who was an executive producer on the show.
Meanwhile, shortly before Louis broke his silence over the scandal, distributors of I Love You, Daddy announced they had pulled the movie’s 17 November (17) release and dumped the project.
The comedian has also been dropped from the upcoming HBO Night of Too Many Stars autism awareness special, which will air live next week (begs13Nov17), while Louis‘ new Netflix comedy special has also been scrapped in the wake of the controversy.
