Norm Macdonald’s previously scheduled appearance on The Tonight Show was abruptly canceled after the veteran comedian’s comments saying there’s “no forgiveness” in the #MeToo movement kicked off intense backlash online.
“Out of sensitivity to our audience and in light of Norm Macdonald’s comments in the press today, ‘The Tonight Show’ has decided to cancel his appearance on Tuesday’s telecast,” NBC said in a statement, according to Variety.
In an interview published this week with the Hollywood Reporter, Macdonald said he was happy to see that the social media-driven anti-sexual harassment movement had “slowed down.”
“I’m happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit,” Macdonald told the outlet. “It used to be, ‘One hundred women can’t be lying.’ And then it became, ‘One woman can’t lie.’ And that became, ‘I believe all women.’ And then you’re like, ‘What?’ Like, that Chris Hardwick guy I really thought got the blunt end of the stick there.”
“The model used to be admit wrongdoing, show complete contrition, and then we give you a second chance,” Macdonald said. “Now it’s admit wrongdoing and you’re finished. And so the only way to survive is to deny, deny, deny. That’s not healthy — that there is no forgiveness. I do think that at some point it will end with a completely innocent person of prominence sticking a gun in his head and ending it. That’s my guess. I know a couple of people this has happened to.”
Macdonald, who is promoting his new Netflix show, cited as examples comedian Louis C.K., who admitted to masturbating in front of several women, many of whom accused him of hurting their careers, and Roseanne Barr, who lost her hit ABC show after saying Valerie Jarrett is a mashup of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes.
Macdonald later said he was in no way defending what C.K. and Barr did.
“Roseanne and Louis have both been very good friends of mine for many years. They both made terrible mistakes and I would never defend their actions,” Macdonald tweeted Tuesday evening. “If my words sounded like I was minimizing the pain that their victims feel to this day, I am deeply sorry.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson
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