Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner denies sexual abuse allegations levied against him by Kater Gordon, one of the show's writers.
"I will just say what I’ve said: the allegation is not true," Weiner said while at an event promoting his new book. "This is a very important topic and a topic that has been an obsession of mine, in my work and in my life — and for, like, 92 hours of the show," Weiner said, referencing the rampant sexism faced head-on by female characters, most notably Joan (Christina Hendricks) and Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), in Mad Men. "We wanted people to be having this conversation and it’s great that we’re having it. It’s a very serious issue."
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"I was just angry a lot of the time," he said as he mulled over his time creating Mad Men, he admitted that he is a demanding boss and that, if he had the chance, he would have acted differently under the stress of being showrunner, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In an interview with The Information, Gordon accused Weiner of sexual harassment and claims that he once said, "she owed it to him to let him see her naked."
Yesterday, writer and director Marti Noxon sent a string of tweets expressing her support for Gordon. The two worked together on the show as writers. Not mincing words, Noxon made it clear what she thought of Weiner. "He is devilishly clever and witty, but he is also, in the words of one of his colleagues, an 'emotional terrorist' who will badger, seduce and even tantrum in an attempt to get his needs met," she wrote.
When the news first broke, it had a devastating effect on his book tour. Of the 11 stops he had planned, roughly one-third of them pulled out in response to the allegation. Literary radio show host David Naimon, who was set to interview Weiner, canceled noting, "Once the news broke, I knew I couldn't do the interview and pretend these allegations didn't exist – not when Weiner's book, like his show, dramatizes certain masculine psychologies within a larger climate of sexism."
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