LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” has canceled an appearance by veteran comedian Norm McDonald after he made comments in support of fellow comedians Louis C.K. and Roseanne Barr.
The former Saturday Night Live comedian was slated be a guest on the late-night talker on Tuesday, but the network announced that it had canceled his appearance “out of sensitivity to our audience.”
Macdonald sparked criticism during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter’s Seth Abramovitch, in which he said: “I’m happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit. It used to be, “One hundred women can’t be lying.” And then it became, “One woman can’t lie.” And that became, “I believe all women.”
He went on to suggest to THR that people deserve second chances.
“The model used to be: admit wrongdoing, show complete contrition and then we give you a second chance. Now it’s admit wrongdoing and you’re finished. And so the only way to survive is to deny, deny, deny. That’s not healthy — that there is no forgiveness. I do think that at some point it will end with a completely innocent person of prominence sticking a gun in his head and ending it. That’s my guess. I know a couple of people this has happened to,” Macdonald told THR.
When Abramovitch pressed him for specifics, Macdonald used the examples of Roseanne Barr and Louis C.K., apparently conflating Barr’s firing for racist tweets and Louis C.K.’s sexual misconduct.
“Well, Louis [C.K.] and Roseanne [Barr] are the two people I know. And Roseanne was so broken up [after her show’s reboot was canceled] that I got Louis to call her, even though Roseanne was very hard on Louis before that. But she was just so broken and just crying constantly. There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will go, “What about the victims?” But you know what? The victims didn’t have to go through that,” Macdonald told THR.
Macdonald later tweeted an apology and qualified his comments to THR.
Roseanne and Louis have both been very good friends of mine for many years. They both made terrible mistakes and I would never defend their actions. If my words sounded like I was minimizing the pain that their victims feel to this day, I am deeply sorry.
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) September 11, 2018
MacDonald was booked for “Late Night” to promote his new talk show ” Norm Macdonald Has a Show,” which debuts on Netflix on Friday.
