Update (December 14, 2017, 5:45 p.m.): Spurlock is stepping down from his production company, Warrior Poets, according to a release sent out Thursday evening. “On behalf of Warrior Poets, we as partners have always supported our company and its endeavors. As of today, Morgan Spurlock will be stepping down effective immediately,” his partners Jeremy Chilnick and Matthew Galkin wrote. “We will continue to lead the company as equal partners, producing, distributing & creating from our independent production company.”
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On Wednesday night, Oscar-nominated documentarian Morgan Spurlock released a statement revealing that he has been accused of rape and sexual harassment by two respective women. Spurlock, who had a wide-ranging docuseries on CNN from 2013 to 2016, detailed the allegations against him in a Twitter statement, first addressing a rape accusation that stems from his college days.
“A girl who I hooked up with on a one night stand accused me of rape. Not outright. There were no charges or investigations, but she wrote about the instance in a short story writing class and called me by name,” he wrote. “A female friend who was in the class told be about it afterwards.”
Spurlock said he was “floored” by the accusation and initially denied it. According to his memory of that night, he and the girl were “fooling around” in his bedroom, when she said she did not want to have sex; after some time had passed, they began to have sex anyway. Eventually, she began crying, so they stopped, he said.
“I tried to comfort her,” Spurlock wrote. “To make her feel better. I thought I was doing ok, I believed she was feeling better. She believed she was raped.”
He then confessed to sexually harassing his former assistant around eight years ago.
“I would call my female assistant ‘hot pants’ or ‘sex pants’ when I was yelling to her from the other side of the office,” he wrote. “Something I thought was funny at the time, but then realized I had completely demeaned and belittled her to a place of non-existence.”
When the assistant decided to quit, Spurlock claims she demanded that he pay a settlement, or “she would tell everyone” about his verbal harassment.
“It was the last thing I wanted, so of course, I paid,” he writes. “I paid for peace of mind. I paid for her silence and cooperation. Most of all, I paid so I could remain who I was. I am part of the problem.”
Spurlock’s confession arrives just a few months after the documentarian was tapped to produce a new docuseries about modern women’s issues titled Who Run the World? Sarah Jessica Parker is also set to co-produce the series. Of course, it is no coincidence that he decided to reveal his past misconduct now, in the post-Weinstein reckoning that has seen numerous high-profile men face accusations of sexual harassment and assault. Just hours before Spurlock released his statement, actress Salma Hayek penned a devastating essay about her experience working with Harvey Weinstein on the 2002 film Frida, claiming that he sexually propositioned her countless times and threatened her life, among other things. A spokesperson for Weinstein released a statement denying many of her claims.
In his statement, Spurlock made numerous other confessions, saying that he has depression, has been unfaithful to all his previous wives and girlfriends, was sexually abused as a child, and has been drinking since he was 13, to the point where he has never “been sober for more than a week.”
“None of these things matter when you chip away at someone and consistently make them feel like less of a person,” he said. “I am part of the problem. We all are.”
On Twitter, he has responded to a handful of users, noting that he is currently “seeking help.”
CORRECTION: This article has been amended to clarify details of Morgan Spurlock’s Who Run the World? docuseries and the length of his CNN series.
