The founder of the “Me Too” movement told Variety that the entertainment news channel E! “shouldn’t send” Ryan Seacrest to the Oscars after allegations of sexual harassment against him surfaced recently.
Activist Tarana Burke said that female actresses shouldn’t be forced to state their position by having to choose whether to be interviewed by Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet during the Oscars on Sunday night.
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“They really shouldn’t send him [to the Oscars],” Burke told Variety, referring to E!, which is covering the lead-up to the red carpet event. “We shouldn’t have to make those choices of, ‘Do we or don’t we?’ ”
The TV host in February was accused by a former stylist of sexual harassment and abuse. The stylist, Suzie Hardy, said she lost her job for reporting Seacrest to the human resources department.
Seacrest has denied the allegations and E! said in February that there was “insufficient evidence to support the claims,” Variety reported.
Hardy has said that the investigator was “whitewashing” the probe to the benefit of Seacrest and said the investigator never reached out to the witnesses she had referred him to.
“This is not about his guilt or innocence,” Burke told Variety. “It’s about there being an accusation that’s alive, and until they sort it out, it’s really on E! News and shouldn’t be on us. … It will let us know where they stand in terms of how respectful E! News is of this issue — and of women.”
“I feel like we should be celebrating the fact that people are finally paying attention to what we’ve been talking about for decades,” Burke said.
Burke added that she believes Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel will strike the right tone for the ceremony and that it is a “relief” that people like Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul accused of sexual assault by numerous women, won’t be present.