Five women have come forward to accuse Louis C.K. of sexual harassment in a New York Times exposé published on Thursday, November 9.
In the piece, comedians Dana Min Goodman, Julia Wolov, Abby Schachner, and a woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity claim that the comedian masturbated directly in front of them or while they were on the phone with him. Comedian Rebecca Corry described an incident in which she allegedly turned down his offer to masturbate in front of her.
Goodman and Wolov claim they were with the writer and producer in 2002 when he asked them if he could take out his penis. They laughed, thinking he was joking, however were shocked when, according to Goodman, “he really did it.”
“He proceeded to take all of his clothes off,” Goodman continued. “And get completely naked, and started masturbating.”
Schachner claims that during a phone call with him in 2003, she could hear him masturbating as they spoke. While she “definitely wasn’t encouraging it,” Schachner didn’t quite know how to handle the situation, explaining, “You want to believe it’s not happening,”
Corry recalled an alleged incident in 2005 while working on a show pilot with Louis C.K. in which he asked her if he could masturbate in front of her and she declined. Corry told the NYT that when she pointed out that he had a pregnant wife and a daughter, “his face got red … and he told me he had issues.”
Courteney Cox and David Arquette, who were both executive producers on the pilot, confirmed the incident to the NYT. “What happened to Rebecca on that set was awful,” the Friends alum said in an email, adding that she felt “outrage and shock.”
She added: “My concern was to create an environment where Rebecca felt safe, protected and heard.”
The New York premiere of Louis C.K.’s film I Love You Daddy scheduled for Thursday was canceled. A source told Us Weekly that executives were informed that the NYT piece would be published and decided to pull the plug on the event.
As noted by the NYT, a character in I Love You, Daddy pretends to masturbate at length in front of other people.
The event was pulled “due to unexpected circumstances,” the film’s distribution company, the Orchard, said in an email to The Los Angeles Times.
Us Weekly has reached out to representatives for Louis C.K. for comment.
