Thanks to some recent comments by Tig Notaro, the long-running rumors of Louis C.K.’s sexual misconduct have resurfaced in the news again, and in a new interview with The New York Times, C.K. was asked about the rumors, and like his Vulture interview last year, he offered up a dismissive answer:
“I’m not going to answer to that stuff, because they’re rumors,†Louis C.K. said during the Toronto interview, as he told Vulture last year. But he added on Sunday, “If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real.†So it’s not real? “No.†he responded. “They’re rumors, that’s all that is.â€
C.K. was pressed to respond to the fact that Notaro, whose Amazon series is executive produced by C.K., has been so public about addressing the rumors recently and told The Daily Beast last month that he “needs to handle†them:
“I don’t know why she said the things she’s said, I really don’t,†he replied, adding, “I don’t think talking about that stuff in the press and having conversations over press lanes is a good idea.â€
Notaro clearly doesn’t agree with C.K.’s thoughts here, though, as seen in another recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter discussing an episode of her Amazon series that tackles sexual assault as well as the fallout from C.K., or lack thereof, since she originally called him out last month. “I have not spoken to Louis in probably going on two years now. I will never hear from Louis C.K. again,†Notaro said, adding, “I never heard from him. I will never hear from him.†Notaro also said she hopes the One Mississippi episode will encourage people to start talking about sexual assault more:
What about in terms of people in positions of power. Do you hope this season spurs victims to speak out against them? I hope so. That’s always the hope is that people speak up for themselves, that they protect themselves and whatever helps them to do that can only be seen, I think, as positive. It’s funny. People are like, “Yeah, tell the truth, tell your story!†Sometimes if it’s not the right story, people don’t want to hear that truth. It’s really interesting and fascinating to me. There is a line in the show where your character is about to tell Kate’s story and she says that it’s not your story to tell. And that is true. There are people that have experienced assault and they are not comfortable or in a position to speak about it. And you have to respect that and just support them in other ways.
Elsewhere in the interview, Notaro said that the One Mississippi episode is based on the real experiences of her writers, and her goal was to show that sexual assault comes in many forms:
When people haven’t lived through that or experienced it in any way, for some reason this particular act is really tossed aside as though it’s just this person exposing themselves and they’re “just or a weirdo†and just “leave the room.†It’s that kind of vibe. We wanted to show that you can be assaulted without even being touched. Nothing can be said and you are still horrifically violated and scared. We wanted to take people through the motions and actual time of this to show how confusing and scary it is.
C.K.’s new film – which reportedly has a lot of parallels with Woody Allen and C.K.’s own sexual misconduct rumors (read more about it here) – just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and sold to Orchard for $5 million.