‘I Just Broke News On Your Show’: Daily Show Creator Winstead Reveals She’s Been Shunned Since Calling Out Sexual Harassment
Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead told SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah that she was “breaking news” about her former show shunning her after she quit over sexual harassment and “predatory behavior.”
On Friday’s edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show, the host talked with Winstead and Comic Mona Shaikh about the career durability of people like disgraced comic Louis CK, versus the women who come forward.
The comics blasted the clubs and other enablers, and Winstead revealed the price she paid for taking a stand:
MS. WINSTEAD: I work at a club that wants to indulge a fan base of people who do not demand accountability for a sexual predator. I don’t want to work at that club and a club that feels like they can’t look harder. And in 52 weeks, find 52 comics that can fill their rooms because there are more than 52 comics that can fill their rooms. No, it’s not OK. Zero, zero zero pass for the club, zero pass for the Grammys. Zero fuckin’ pass.
MS. SHAIKH: And, by the way, Lizz, while we’re talking about this. All the female comedians that came forward and accused, you know, and made accusations against, you know, Louis C.K. None of those female comedians have a career. None of them.
MR. OBEIDALLAH: That’s what I’ve heard. I wasn’t aware of that until recently.
MS. SHAIKH: Their careers are destroyed recently. Well, he’s out there touring and winning Grammys.
MS. WINSTEAD: Oh, let me talk to you about something right now before we go. I left The Daily Show. You can read about why I left. There was sexual harassment, there was predatory behavior. I walked away from the show I created because I couldn’t, in good faith, run a staff with the rage I felt. I did nothing wrong, I left. Do you think I have ever done anything, or been invited to one single Daily Show reunion? No, I have not. Have I ever opened my mouth and said one disparaging thing in the 25 years that show was on the air? No, I have not. The silencing of people who simply ask for justice and who do things that they shouldn’t have had to do is fucking deafening.
MS. SHAIKH: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry Lizz.
MR. OBEIDALLAH: I was not aware of that. I’m sorry to hear. I had no idea. But…
MS. WINSTEAD: No. Well, I just broke news on your show, Dean.
Watch the clip above, via SiriusXM.
