Eight years after #MeToo accusations that he admitted were true derailed his exploding career, Louis C.K. opens up about what he’s learned from going through that in a new podcast appearance.<\/h2>\n
As Louis C.K.<\/strong><\/a> prepares to launch his debut novel, Ingram<\/em>, he’s getting real about one of the most tumultuous chapters of is own life, when the truth about his sexual misconduct came out and derailed the upward trajectory of his career.<\/p>\n A standup comic who was just coming off a whole new level of success and critical acclaim for his FX series Loui<\/em>e,<\/em> C.K. found himself one of the more prominent celebrities in the crosshairs of the #MeToo movement, when the social reckoning for men abusing their power came for him in 2017.<\/p>\n <\/a> Louis CK Won a Grammy and Twitter Is Not Happy About It – Click image for related story<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n After he was accused of several instances of sexual misconduct by multiple women in a New York Times<\/em> article that year, the comedian came clean and admitted that the allegations against him were true. As a result, his film I Love You, Daddy<\/em> was pulled from distribution, though his standup career would controversially continue. He even won a Grammy for his first stand-up show released after the controversy, 2020’s Sincerely Louis C.K.<\/em><\/p>\n While he addressed the “accurate accusations” in that special, C.K. said on Friday’s This Past Weekend<\/strong><\/em><\/a> podcast with host Theo Von, as covered by TheWrap<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and Mediaite<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, that it took him many more years to fully unpack and come to terms with his own behaviors at the time.<\/p>\n He also spoke about how despite everything, it actually felt freeing after those five women came forward with their truths about him. “You\u2019re trying to piece together that broken mirror and cutting your fingers, that\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s true, and when life f–ks it up for you, when it gets torn up, it\u2019s a relief,” he explained.<\/p>\n “That\u2019s why I felt free, you know?” the comedian continued. “Because I had tried to manage these problems I had inside of me for so many years, and I tried to feel like I was like a normal person, or that I was what I thought of as a good person. But I was doing s\u2013t in the background of my life that I was ashamed of. I was hurting other people and trying to tell myself I wasn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n He talked about the long internal process he went through to fully understand the wrongness of his own behavior, beginning with his statement in 2017 when he said<\/strong><\/a>, in part, “These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d–k 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 d–k isn\u2019t a question. It\u2019s a predicament for them.”<\/p>\n <\/a> Louis C.K.’s Ex-Manager Apologizes For His Part In Sexual Harassment Scandal: ‘What I Did Was Wrong’ – Click image for related story<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n C.K. explained to Von, “You know, those things on the edge, like using another person, but you got their permission first, you\u2019re still using another person. You\u2019re not being with them, you\u2019re using them.”<\/p>\n “That took me a long time to learn about that stuff,” he continued. “But when you\u2019re doing that stuff and creating more and more problems, they just keep getting bigger and bigger.”<\/p>\n On top of that, he said that he was struggling internally with how well things were going in his life and career while carrying this internal awareness of his own behavior. He explained that he was feeling an “incredible rift between way you\u2019re representing yourself and who you really are.”<\/p>\n In looking back at himself then, C.K. speculated he was, in a way, trying to out himself. “I think some of the early versions of talking on stage really honestly were me trying to get out and say I\u2019m corrupt, I want everybody to know it. Right, I\u2019m a corrupt file,” he explained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n