What happened to George Takei’s sexual assault allegations?
the accuser has since admitted it wasn’t true after people started picking apart his story and finding inconsistencies. george takei has forgiven him.
unfortunately, with every movement, there is a chance for a liar to try to join. i feel terrible, because i initially believed it.
This is not exactly accurate.
If you go read the full article linked in the one linked above (i.e. the well-researched and exhaustively interviewed story in The Observer, here), what you find is that Takei’s accuser has admitted that some aspects of the story were reported differently in different outlets at the time he first went public with it, that his story changed a few times or that details changed a few times, and what is likely untrue are the most sensational aspects.
Consultation with toxicologists strongly suggests that the accuser was NOT drugged by Takei (a rumor that took off and spread widely). The accuser has walked back the claim that Takei touched his genitals without consent (settling more on the idea that Takei was in the process of removing his pants and underwear; but not groping him).
There was also a claim by the accuser of he and Takei having met for coffee during the 90s, and that does appear to be untrue. (That claim had made it harder to believe that Takei did not remember the accuser at all.) Further, the reporter could not find friends of the accuser who had heard the story from him back at the time it happened. The accuser did admit that he often retold the story in the 80s and 90s, but more as a “funny celebrity encounter”, a “party trick”, not as a traumatic experience. (Warning: there are also some quotes from the accuser about Takei that feel kind of racist, and IMO felt unnecessarily cruel on his part, as well as likely objectively false.)
However, the accuser has NOT completely recanted his story. He did NOT ADMIT THAT IT WAS UNTRUE. He still claims that the encounter happened. What has emerged, though, is more of a picture of a failed hookup in which both men were drunk and one (Takei) misread the intentions and willingness of the other (the accuser); but, that when the accuser said “no”, Takei backed off. The accuser ends the interview still wishing for Takei to give him an apology (for, in his view, having attempted to take advantage of a friendship he says they had up until that point).
The reporter also is clear about the fact that unlike in many of the other cases that have emerged about celebrities – in which the revelation comes after years of rumors and “open secret” knowledge about the person’s behavior – even digging turned up no other accusations or even rumors about Takei’s behavior, going back years. This does not, of course, mean that Takei is “innocent”, but it is worth noting he does not fit the pattern of so many other of these cases.
I’m not writing this out either to exonerate Takei, or to say “no, it’s still just as bad”. The article definitely put the case in much greyer territory, and I urge anyone who wants more information to read it. (I did read it hoping it would exonerate Takei; I still think the conclusion is less clear-cut than that, although I do think it exonerates him from the worst aspects of the accusations.)
Don’t distill something this complicated down to a headline, especially one that is misleading. That’s kind of how we get to a point like this in the first place.
Thoughtfulfangirling 