Marc Maron, a contemporary and sometimes friend of Louis C.K., responded to the recent accounts of sexual harassment published in the Times. The Times culture writer and stand up comedian Sopan Deb shared a series of screenshots of Maron's lengthy statement on Twitter Monday. Last week, when news broke that C.K. had harassed multiple women, the comedian tweeted that he would share his full thoughts on the matter on his podcast WTF with Marc Maron.
"I certainly can't condone anything he did," Maron said on his podcast WTF with Marc Maron. "There was no way to justify it. There's no way to defend it. There's no way to apologize for him about it. There's no way to let him off the hook. But there's a lot of concern about who knew what when? How'd you guys let this happen? 'Everybody knew this. Everybody knew that. Everybody was in on it.'"
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Maron and C.K. (née Louis Székely) started their careers together in Boston in the late '80s and early '90s. They later became estranged. Maron and C.K. addressed the strain on their friendship in an episode of WTF with Marc Maron, which appeared to be a reconciliation. (The podcast episode, which you can listen to here, reaches painful levels of awkward.) C.K. told New York in 2011 that he was open to a friendship with Maron post-podcast, but things were still "a little weird."
Maron admitted on the podcast that he himself had been sexually assaulted by a professor of his when he was in his late teens. Maron recalled that the professor offered to be a mentor, and took him out to dinner. The professor "got a little drunk-y" and kissed Maron on the mouth.
"Did I go, 'Fuck you, what the fuck — goddamnit, I don't want this'?" Maron said. "No. I didn't do that. I took it and my body went into a paralysis. It was almost like a leaving the body kind of moment." Maron explained that he excused himself and he "carried the shame" of the encounter for "a while."
As for C.K., Maron impressed that the comedian's actions were "a big deal."
"It's boundary-shattering — it is traumatizing," he said. Still, Maron ended his monologue by saying that he will forgive his friend.
"He did some gross shit. Some damaging shit," he sad. "And you know, he's in big fucking trouble. So what am I going to do? I'm going to be his friend, what do you want me to do? You know, it's probably the best time to be his friend when he needs to make changes in his life and, you know, I can learn from it. He can learn from it."
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Read Maron's full statement, below.
This is the first part of what @marcmaron had to say on @wtfpod about his friend, Louis C.K. Every word is worth the read: pic.twitter.com/WXyUZIzrg1
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) November 13, 2017
If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
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