What a repulsive man John Barrowman is

[Tequilabeliever]

John Barrowman, indecent exposer extraordinaire has been on tv this morning talking about how it’s not sexual harassment to lob your knob out in front of your colleagues and everyone had a great time and thought it was hilarious whilst he was doing it.

How tone deaf can one man be. Even given it was over ten years ago, has it really ever been ok to behave in that way, anywhere, let alone in a workplace.

I’d love to hear from the women who were present when this was happening. I believe he actually put his penis on the shoulder of one woman. The man should have been arrested but no, he’s on tv talking about how painful it’s been for him, for this to have been brought to the attention of the public.

Actually worked in a few workplaces that were like this when I was young. Didn't even think anything was wrong at the time. It was just banter, but now it seems horrific.

Addressing the accent point, are we sure it is affected? I had a friend as a child who was from Scotland and then moved to England. She switched between accents depending who she was talking to. English accent to us and Scottish to her family. It was a shock when I first heard her do it but it was completely natural and not affected. Could be the case here.

I find him so very, very tiresome. (Minor exception of Torchwood, which was lifted by great writing more than him tbh)

As a Scot myself his Scottish accent is as shit as his American one. They both sound horribly fake.

I always like to imagine how this sort of thing would go down in other work places? I’d it ok to whip your dick on someone’s shoulder if you work in an office or a bank or Tesco? I thought the same when people were outraged the Jeremy Clarkson was sacked from Top Gear for punching a colleague in the face.

If he still thinks it's funny, he's not sorry.

I think he’s bidialectal (can switch legitimately between more than one accent; Gillian Anderson does this)

I shared a lift with him once in a London hotel - I couldn’t escape quick enough when we reached the reception area. He seriously made my skin crawl with his smugness!

I could have accepted a 'gosh, I didn't realise at the time, but obviously I'd never do it now.' I don't accept a 'yeah, no, it's fine, it was just for fun!'

It's not unusual for people who spent part of their childhood in one place and moved elsewhere to have confused accents. It doesn't mean its affected, just not quite one or the other. That's not the crime to hang him for.

@ButterflyBitch

I think he sounds Scottish when he talks to someone Scottish. I knew someone like this in real life. Sounded completely English until he spoke to his mum and then it was the broadest Scottish accent ever. Sounded really odd.

I knew someone the same. We used to laugh if she phoned her mum as her broad Scottish accent was so drastically different to her English voice. She moved to England as a young teenager and she said her accent just gradually changed but as soon as she spoke to someone with a Scottish accent she reverted. We just heard it when it was her mum but she said it was anyone with a strong Scottish accent.

To be fair, I did some v/o work with him a few years back. He was extremely pleasant and very professional. Was nice — genuinely nice, not sex-pest nice — to the runners and juniors. Nothing untoward was presented for hilarity or any other purposes.

Still don’t like him.

@NightmareSlashDelightful

I think he’s bidialectal (can switch legitimately between more than one accent; Gillian Anderson does this)

I didn't realise there was a name for it, we used to think it was a bit like someone bilingual who can switch between languages without thinking about it.

@AndAsIfByMagic

It was over and done with years ago. Most people on set thought it was a laugh but 2 people didn't. They complained, rightly. He apologised to them and the behaviour stopped.

15 years ago.

He had tremendous public support last year when it was all dug up again. You don't like him? Others do.

He has a right to make a living. I hate cancel culture that allows for no mistakes. People need to accept that others are human and do daft things.

The Victorian age beckons.

Is that you John?

It isn't very bright, is it? Surely someone advised him to at least make a show of contrition. But he's shown himself up as not only a knobhead, but an unrepentant one.

They complained, rightly.
He apologised to them and the behaviour stopped.
He was told before that incident to stop getting his cock out, yet he continued and did it again when working that job. There's clips of him on Jonathan Ross talking about how Andrew Lloyd webber production company told him to stop getting his cock out on stage, before this incident happened, this is a long pattern.
If he struggles with keeping his cock in his trousers, working with others is probably not for him.

@AndAsIfByMagic

It was over and done with years ago. Most people on set thought it was a laugh but 2 people didn't. They complained, rightly. He apologised to them and the behaviour stopped.

15 years ago.

He had tremendous public support last year when it was all dug up again. You don't like him? Others do.

He has a right to make a living. I hate cancel culture that allows for no mistakes. People need to accept that others are human and do daft things.

The Victorian age beckons.

It might have been over and done with years ago, but here he is bringing it up all over again. I wonder why?

Sexual harassment at work (or anywhere else for that matter) is never ok, especially not when the perpetrator mentions it years later, deny any wrongdoing and says he only did it for a laugh and it was taken the wrong way.

Cancel culture? Don't be a pervert then.

Yes, the whole 'you can't take a joke' thing. Well it's not funny, it's vile and disgusting. And so are you John Barrowman.

I thought this came out years ago and he apologised for it.

He does remind me of Tom Cruise actually. He was deliberately cultivating that?

@picklemewalnuts

I could have accepted a 'gosh, I didn't realise at the time, but obviously I'd never do it now.' I don't accept a 'yeah, no, it's fine, it was just for fun!'

Precisely. I can see that at the time he might have intended his actions just to be a bit of a laugh. I would have sympathy if he said something like 'As a gay man, I did not think of this as anything sexual but clearly didn't consider how I might have made women feel. I now realise that what I did was unacceptable and can only apologise and promise that I will never do anything like it again' But instead we basically get 'Poor me, the nasty uptight women have upset me- but aren't I brave for battling through.'

I have no care for this man now. I’m all for allowing mistakes. But you have to acknowledge them and be sorry. He isn’t sorry.

As for the changing accent? I have done this. I come from a tiny bit of the country where the Doric is as broad as my harris.

I joined up and found that my accent and vocabulary was very difficult for people to get to grips with. I had to revert to my best pan loaf.

I’ve not heard it called lulu syndrome but I although I understand it, I’ve another use for that name.

I call my nether regions my Lulu. For reasons most would hazard a guess at.

@AndAsIfByMagic
Over and done with?
Like the passage of time makes it any less vile?
Personally this man and his actions and current views as expressed recently strike me as very dangerous.
Cancel culture?
He’s basically saying that gay men can expose themselves to women, sexually harass or assault them - because it isn’t “real”, it’s just comedy.
I was sexually assaulted by an allegedly gay doctor (I say allegedly as I don’t actually know how he considers the assault nor do I know whether he claims to be homosexual or bisexual or something else, but he is in a same sex marriage).
The reason my complaint to his employer was refused was because he is married to a same sex person.
That’s a large part of why the police didn’t even take the case to CPS.
That man single-handedly ruined most of the last two and a half years of my life.
Oh and he’s a real joker too.
Everyone thinks he’s just a lovely gay chap who sometimes goes a bit too far with his jokes.
Do you see what that means?
He can earn a fucking living (the doctor) scrubbing shit from a public loo for all I care.
And the same applies to this twat, and any other twat who has such low level intelligence and awareness of other people’s needs and boundaries that they imagine it’s ok to put their stupid penis on their shoulder.
Exactly how could this be defensible?
Had his colleagues signed up for assault just because they went to work?

I should also stress that I don’t think his actions were mistakes. Once may be thought to be a mistake.

To do so repeatedly is not a mistake. To make light of it and play the poor me card is.

A friend of a friend of mine worked for a major tv channel, and they told very similar stories. Apparently he's been notorious for it for years.