WATCH: Norm MacDonald Explains #MeToo, Down Syndrome Comments in Strange View Segment
Comedian and SNL alum Norm Macdonald appeared on The View today following an escalating series of remarks, starting with comments about the #MeToo movement, that have stirred outrage and controversy. The unusually quiet segment itself drew controversy shortly after it ended, prompting a response from the View hosts.
The interview began with Whoopi Goldberg asking about his original remarks to the Hollywood Reporter. “You took a lot of flack for saying in the — for some things that you said in the Hollywood Reporter,” she said, “saying that you were kind of glad that the MeToo movement has slowed down. We don’t really know you as a guy who, you know, really comments on much. What were you trying to say?”
“Well, I was– you know, print reporters, they ask the questions and they put them all together,” he said. “What I was talking about was Chris Hardwick, a particular comedian, a friend of mine. You know, if 500 women go against a man, obviously the guy is guilty. But the Chris Hardwick one, it was one woman against one man. So I was saying that I thought it was good that the pendulum was slowing and Chris Hardwick is as rehabilitated as he’s going to get -he still tells me he can’t walk down the street without people yelling stuff at him. But, that’s all I was trying to say.”
Joy Behar said he does raise “valid questions” about due process, but that Norm loses her when he equated the hardship that Louis C.K. went through with the hardship that victims go through. “That doesn’t compute,” she said. “Can you explain yourself a little there?”
“Yeah, that’s not, that’s not what I was saying,” he said. Norm related that he had been talking to Roseanne Barr who was distraught after her own controversy, and he told her he couldn’t really talk to her about it because he’d never been through it. He said that he told Roseanne that Louis C.K. had been through it, and that they should talk to each other about it.
“And then the guy said, ‘what about the victims’ and I said, well the victims haven’t gone through this, I was talking about this particular event,” he said. “Of course the victims have gone through worse than that, but– I’m gonna get a victim to call Roseanne?”
“That’s a good clarification,” said Behard.
New co-host Abby Huntsman then brought up the fact that on Wednesday he’d made things worse while on with Howard Stern. He said that he had used “down syndrome” to avoid saying another word “we don’t say anymore,” clearly referring to “retard” or “retarded”. He said that he realized when he said it that he had “done something unforgivable.”
“It’s like, things spill out sometimes and it’s just.. difficult,” said Behar.
The oddly-paced interview continued in that vein. Norm’s answers came extremely slowly, so much that Huntsman asked him if he was being extremely careful out of fear of offending anyone further, which he did not directly refute or confirm.
Watch the clip above, courtesy of ABC.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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