The following article, which has drawn much criticism, should have included an acknowledgment of the seriousness and number of accusations that had been made against the writer, jian ghomeshi. In October 2014, Ghomeshi, about whom several women had filed harassment complaints, was fired from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after executives saw evidence that he had caused physical harm to a woman. shortly after, more than twenty women accused him of sexual abuse and harassment, which included hitting, biting, choking and verbal abuse during sexual intercourse. Many of these accusations were made in respected publications, including The Toronto Star. That November, Ghomeshi was accused of sexually assaulting three women. (Sexual assault, under Canada’s criminal code, can include threats and non-consensual physical contact. There is no specific statutory provision for rape as defined in United States law.) in January 2015, three other charges of sexual assault were brought against him by women. He was acquitted of all charges and settled an additional sexual assault charge, from a co-worker at the CBC, out of court on a peace bond and public apology. Substantial space will be devoted to letters responding to this article in the next issue of New York Review, dated October 25, 2018.
Not too long ago, I spoke to hundreds of thousands of listeners in North America every day on a public radio show. These days, the closest I get to a public performance is at a neighborhood karaoke bar in New York. even that can have its dangers. One night last year, I was waiting for my turn to sing when a woman saw my name on the list. “jian!” she told me. “Your name is jian? say oh! Hey, do you know who ruined that name for you? “no. who?” I said, bracing myself. For the first time, she looked directly at me and stopped smiling.
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For her, it was like one of those excruciating moments where you accidentally include the end of a joke in a reply-to-everyone email. For me, it was just another day in the life of the notorious jian. she apologized and said all the right things. And I said all the right things. (“How could you know?”) I mostly felt bad because she felt bad. but then we got together and sang a duet together. and then we became friends and are in regular contact. point to one more human being who no longer thinks I’m a creep.
This is the thing about being a former “celebrity” who is now an outcast: you don’t just feel sorry for yourself. you also feel sorry for everyone around you, sometimes even strangers. the anxiety is on their faces as they babble banalities, carefully avoid the subject of the race (or lack thereof), make vague gestures of encouragement that fade into silence.
In October 2014, I was fired from my job at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after allegations circulated online that I had been sexually abusive to an ex-girlfriend. After my termination, and in the midst of a media storm, several more people accused me of sexual misconduct. I faced criminal charges that included pulling my hair, hitting me during intimacy in one case, and, the most serious charge, involuntary choking while kissing a woman on a date in 2002. I pleaded not guilty. Several months later, after a very public trial, I was acquitted of all charges. one of the charges was dismissed and later dropped on a peace bond, a promise of good conduct for a year. there was no criminal trial.
my acquittal left my accusers and many observers deeply unhappy. there was a feeling among them that, regardless of any legal exoneration, I was almost certainly a world-class jerk, probably a sexual harasser, and that I needed to be held accountable beyond simply losing my career and reputation. since then, I have become a hashtag. one of my friends jokes that she should get some kind of public recognition as a #metoo pioneer. Now there are many more hated guys than me. but I was the guy everyone hated first.
I haven’t spoken publicly about the explosion on my world for four years. given that my name, at least in canada, became a metonym for everything from male privilege to the need for due process, i have been aware that weighing in to reclaim it and inject nuance into my story is tense, to say the least. . . in my silence people have tended to suggest what has become of me. So I’m on a beach with martini in hand, laughing at “getting away with it” (no). or that I am huddled in a dark room, crying with embarrassment (well, yes, that happened). or just cowered forever.
In fact, there has been enough humiliation to last a lifetime. I can’t just move to another city and restart under a pseudonym. I am constantly competing with an evil version of myself online. this is the power of contemporary mass shame. even the people who support me sometimes have expectations of how I will act based on a singular and sexualized identity that was repeated in media stories. but this period has also been a great education.
My path to public toxicity was curious. when he was a student, he was a doctrinaire activist who received tear gas at protests; I was once on the evening news for organizing a tuition fee rally that had wet macaroni thrown at Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. For years after that, I wrote prog songs and toured with a sometimes political folk-rock band, Moxy Früvous. I wore T-shirts that shouted slogans of equality and liberation, and I believed everything.
at cbc, he had a canadian-style reservation when american stars were stubborn on the air. the necessary image of a liberal public broadcaster may be tediously correct. I used the right ribbons, I used the right hashtags, I had the right guests. I did interviews with everyone from Toni Morrison to Gloria Steinem to Drake to Maya Angelou. I attended rallies and spoke at progressive fundraisers. It didn’t occur to me that I might ever be one of the bad guys.
I loved q, the cultural show I co-created and hosted for eight years, and was consumed with finding as wide an audience as possible. but I was also consumed with anxiety in my quest for success. in 2014, I was telling my close friends that I felt like I was in a cage that I had created myself. It didn’t help that my salary increased as my Twitter following skyrocketed, or that agents and advertisers touted my appearance on “influencer” lists. I had become a man who derived all his self-esteem from external validation. at the same time, everything around me seemed to tolerate the bullish way a successful bachelor might act. this is not an excuse; it’s a grim realization.
With every step in my career, I left behind a trail of disappointed friends or co-workers. I learned to be pushy when I didn’t get my way. and at some point, when it came to women, I began to use my liberal education in gender studies as a cover for my own behavior. apparently he was so well versed in how sexism works that he would arrogantly give me a free pass. I was outspoken in public life but deaf in my private affairs.
Before 2014, it was unimaginable to me that I would become a poster boy for men who are assholes. he had not been a network head or an executive with institutional power; there had been no formal complaints at work that I knew of over the years; there were no secret deals or confidentiality agreements. As things fell apart, I became obsessed with the inaccurate stories and the pattern of obscene details being taken for truth in the echo chambers of social media outrage. that precluded any focus on my own responsibility.
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Since then, I’ve spent nearly four years reflecting on my relationships with the women I’ve dated. For some, nothing I say here will suffice or be expressed in the right way. Although I feel deep remorse for the way I have treated some people in my life, I cannot confess to the accusations that are inaccurate. what I do confess is that I was emotionally thoughtless in the way I treated the people I dated and tried to date. Also, I used my influence and status to try to attract women and guide them when they were interested. there are all sorts of old-fashioned words to describe men like this: gamer, creep, scoundrel, lothario.
but it went deeper than that. I was picky about dates and personal matters. I would keep pushing for what I wanted. I was critical and dismissive. some women I cared about were okay with the things I wanted to avoid my disappointment or moods. I should have been more respectful and accepting of the women in my life. I tell them that they deserve much better from me.
wanted the interest of women. dating and having sex became another measure of status. When a well-known broadcaster spotted me out on a date in my twenties at a film festival in Toronto around 2006 (I was thirty-nine then), he left a voicemail saying, “Dude, you’re the king!” that memory is galling now, but at the time i enjoyed the praise from him and wanted more. he had never called me before and never mentioned my work; the real message was that the women he was with were the true measure of success.
but if the opinion of others is how you define yourself, what happens when all the external supports of status (ratings, followers, social media likes) are removed overnight? morning? who are you?
I was wrong about writing this essay for many months. I have never responded to media requests. for a time, silence was a necessary consequence of the legal case he faced. since then, it has been about gaining some certainty about what I would like to say. I also understand that this article focuses on my experience, which may not be helpful in making women’s experiences more visible.
I have spent these years trying to listen, read and reflect. I spoke long before my life exploded. Although I was an enthusiastic listener during on-air interviews, I didn’t apply that awareness to my personal life. getting involved in yourself will make you deaf to important things you should be hearing. humility comes with perspective, and listening is a big part of it. but there is no fast track to reckoning. accepting a seismic interruption of life and beginning a true process of reflection takes time.
When a man is publicly accused of sexual misconduct in this age, almost invariably the first thing he does is apologize. As heartfelt as remorse is, my own experience makes me wary of it. In a maelstrom of confusion, humiliation, resistance, and conflicting comments from those around you, how much can anyone really dwell on “I’m sorry”?
You want the feeling of genuine contrition to stir within you, because people tell you that it is the first step towards redemption. and you allow yourself to imagine that some big mea culpa could change your fate, regardless of the veracity of the accusations. but what you really feel in the first few days after being publicly accused is fear and anger, in that order.
fear is easy to explain: your whole future is at stake. but you are also furious because everyone who tries to bring you down makes you fearful. you are confused by how the stories of your supposed behavior from years past are now being used as a sledgehammer to destroy the career you have built and determine the way you will be viewed forever. even if your lips speak words of contrition, your mind is a ferment of petty and selfish fury.
Added to your embarrassment is the fact that you’re suddenly defenseless. lawyers tell you what you can say (nothing) and who you can say (hardly anyone). you don’t leave the house because there are cameras outside. you stop looking at the internet because most people tell you to curl up and die. you savor the few messages of support from your friends, pathetically. in your darkest moments, you make lists of those you haven’t heard from. and that’s pathetic too.
You realize almost immediately that this is also a financial calamity: not only have you lost your income, but you’re also losing your savings in legal fees. the accusations you face are conflated on social media with horrible things other men have done that have no connection. the details of the accusations seem to become irrelevant, as do any legal decisions. the stain of bad actions becomes indelible; The presumption prevails that the worst of what is tweeted is to be believed. You wonder how you can show regret for the ways you’ve behaved badly in the past without validating all the crazy things people you’ve never met say about you.
less than a month before my life exploded, i watched my father die. then I lost almost everything else that I thought was important. All the pillars of professional and personal support that I thought were solid disappeared almost overnight. the professional team I had hired as experts to guide me through the explosion also slipped away, but not before encouraging some ill-advised social media posts and threatening lawsuits.
For the first two weeks, I was suicidal. I contemplated the methods by which I could kill myself. I was terrified to be awake and terrified to fall asleep. the afternoons were filled with nightmares that inevitably involved my father on his deathbed. it was as if the end of my life, as I knew it, was somehow tied to the actual end of his.
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In a crisis like this, you are painfully aware that it happens not only to you, but also to those closest to you who are left behind. I worried frantically and helplessly for my mother. While I was furious at the media portrayals, I questioned my own memories in the face of a barrage of speculation. people on TV expressed their “shock” at the allegations of misconduct and my “secret life,” as it was sensationally dubbed. I was surprised too. for weeks they used me as click bait and meal ticket for certain reporters who ran every story they could with my name in the headline. A writer questioned my education, using a comparison to convicted murderer Paul Bernardo. there were few limits to how far some would go.
When the scandal broke, dozens of friends, some of whom had previously dated, came up to support me and said they would speak for my character. as the storm grew, many backed off, too scared or conflicted or shocked by the headlines to take a public stand. several artist friends and celebrities wrote in to say they would have to remain silent because it could affect their careers. he was grateful for her candor. many others, even those I thought were close friends, just haven’t spoken to me since.
The storm also transformed me from being a proud Canadian to being “Iranian-Canadian”. my inbox and social media accounts were filled with harmful allusions to my Middle Eastern origin and racist references to Iranians. At my first court appearance, in November 2014, amidst the media turmoil outside as I walked out with my lawyers, a man repeatedly yelled, “Go back to Iran!” i was not born in iran and i have never lived there. it would be more accurate to say “go back to thornhill!”, the friendly toronto suburb where I grew up. Not that I was ashamed of my heritage. instead, I abhorred the racist implication that misbehavior would be seen as a correlation to my ethnicity: just another Iranian boy channeling an ancestral brand of Middle Eastern Asian misogyny; and I was deeply ashamed that the Iranian-Canadian community, which had been so supportive of me, now had to put up with an association with me, on top of all the other stereotypes out there.
the cbc obediently passed on all my hate mail. an anonymous letter was written in capital letters: “your father hates to fuck your mother and produced a brown baboon… you are lucky to be (visiting) canada… in i-ran el ayatualla [sic] i fucked you …watch your back and your house.” But even these specific racist responses weren’t as personally damning as being considered an outsider because of my heritage, a narrative that spoke to my deepest insecurities. In truth, I had always seen myself as a skinny, dark kid who didn’t fit in, not the smug, privileged immigrant my attackers saw. both images were wrong. but my misperception obscured the awareness of my state. I did not accept my own power.
since the scandal, the reaction of men has perhaps been the most striking. Aside from a few, including former media colleagues and friends who reported my downfall with a zeal that was transparent in its efforts to display its own virtue, there was a distinct pattern to the men I would meet in the first year, in Middle of all the headlines and embarrassment. many of them, strangers, acquaintances, friends or people who communicate on social networks, would at some point furtively say: “what happened to you could have been me”. that is, in the safety of conversations that they were sure would not be made public, men would tell me that there were things that they, too, might have been accused of at some point in their lives.
The disconnection was confusing. just as my name was in vogue as the latest avatar of male misbehavior, men confided in me that, in various ways, they weren’t much different. Countless men have contacted me over the past four years to tell me their stories or commiserate in some way. it’s strange to become an involuntary repository for men who are confused about gender relations or sexual behaviors. I began to see my own actions as part of a systemic culture of unhealthy masculinity. At the other end of the spectrum, I get messages from women who tell me they “enjoy the same lifestyle” and want to meet up for sex. I don’t answer, but I suspect I’d disappoint them with the news that I don’t have a “lifestyle” that can facilitate what they’re looking for.
last year, when i posted a creative project on youtube, a toronto weekly declared that i had “snuck out from under my rock”. another observer predicted that he would come out of self-imposed exile a rabid right-winger. the truth is more banal. I’m not suddenly an anti-feminist activist, jumping onstage at a breitbart road show. nor am I planning to seek public absolution through the adoption of a notion that all men are bad. what I am is someone who has had a crash course in empathy. I have a new unwavering antipathy towards schadenfreude.
many of those who helped me survive the explosion are people who have gone through great difficulties in their lives: addiction, bankruptcy, loss of loved friends or family, or great mistakes and public humiliation. I now have a different way of looking at anyone who is being attacked in the public sphere, even those with whom I deeply disagree.
and with all of this, i’m moving towards what could be seen as a trite point: we learn from our mistakes.
On a trip to Europe a couple of years ago, emancipated by the anonymity of being abroad, I was on a train from London to Paris and found myself sitting next to a single woman in her mid-thirties. we had both boarded the train with headphones and struck up a conversation about music. we learned that we shared the same tastes in new wave. she was captivating and intelligent.
As soon as our conversation began, I was galvanized by an automatic reflection of my days as someone. tell him about your program. tell him about your band. sell your book It occurred to me that I had been campaigning my entire adult life for jian’s promotion. the same instinct began to trace a line of events. she would give me her number. After arriving in Paris, she would text him. we would meet in a bar. she would tell him more about me. maybe we’d get intimate. she would feel loved.
there were positive sparks. She mentioned that she had an open agenda in Paris. I listened and smiled. again, I felt the old urge to use this to my advantage.
but this interesting woman was talking to me without knowing or caring if I was someone. like maybe I have the ability to be worthy without reciting my resume. she talked for most of the trip and I listened to her. I teased her a bit and enjoyed making her laugh. There were times when I would reference events, places, or people (“I adore leonard cohen”) that would once have been my cue to talk about myself (“You know, I did one of the last interviews with leonard cohen, and… ” ). instead, I found myself asking her questions.
when the train arrived in paris, we got up and grabbed our things. she smiled to me. we paused. I extended my hand and wished him good afternoon. “It was really cool talking to you,” I told her. the words were delayed for a moment. then she shook my hand and said something similar. then we both left to find our respective carpools. only once I went outside did I realize that she hadn’t even told him my name.