OVER THE YEARS, Morrissey has been known to make some strange statements.
They range from bizarre but innocuous to pretty offensive. For example, the 58-year-old singer blamed Beyoncé for the dwindling global rhino populations and he has previously hit out at David Attenborough for using the word ‘seafood’.
More seriously, he was forced to remove t-shirts from his merch store after he was accused of being racist and released a deeply insensitive statement following the Manchester bombing earlier this year.
In an interview with German news outlet Der Spiegel, he decided to offer his two cents on the Kevin Spacey allegations.
He said:
As far as I know, he was in a bedroom with a 14-year-old. Kevin Spacey was 26, boy 14. One wonders where the boy’s parents were. One wonders if the boy did not know what would happen. I do not know about you, but in my youth I have never been in situations like this.
Disregarding the fact that the majority of 26-year-old men know not to accost young teenagers, he continued:
I was always aware of what could happen. When you are in somebody’s bedroom, you have to be aware of where that can lead to. That’s why it does not sound very credible to me. It seems to me that Spacey has been attacked unnecessarily.
Aside from the original allegation made by Anthony Rapp, Spacey has since been accused of similar behaviour by almost 40 more individuals.
Morrissey returned to his statement on the allegations in another interview with The Times, referring to Kevin Spacey’s alleged sexual harassment and assault as ‘a pathetic attempt at courtship‘.
You must be careful as far as ‘sexual harassment’ is concerned because often it can be just a pathetic attempt at courtship. I’m sure it’s horrific, but we have to keep everything in proportion. Do you not agree? I have never been sexually harassed, I might add.
Minimising sexual harassment by referring to it as a ‘pathetic attempt at courtship’ does nothing to empower people to speak out. Oh, and then there’s the very obvious fact that somebody in their late twenties should not be attempting to ‘court’ someone almost half of their age. There’s no excuse.
During a performance in Chicago last weekend, Morrissey denied the original comments about Spacey.
I did an interview a couple of weeks ago for a German newspaper and, of course, let me just say this: That was the last print interview I will ever do.
The crowd cheered, but seemingly not with the relief that the rest of us feel about Morrissey keeping his mouth shut. He continued:
Unless you see the words form in my mouth and then you see or hear the words come out of my mouth, please, if you don’t see that, I didn’t say them.
