Chris Evans after Gregg Wallace - too big to fail?

[mids2019]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4839335/chris-evans-sexual-harassment-bbc-flash/

Should we be looking again at Chris Evans since the quite right disgrace of Wllace?
Switched on virgin radio and Chris had apiece about the North East and Hadrians wall on his allegedly topical breakfast show. Someone definitely keeping his head down.

I agree with Gregg taking a step back but is fine for Chris Evans to address behaviour in the past or is he too big to fail?

No I am not saying any of it is ok just that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad. Look at what's happening to women in Afghanistan. Get some perspective. That's what I am trying to say. A lot of men are tossers but so are a lot of women - shall we cancel all of them?

Aaargh.

Again: if young women experience hostile work environments where older and more powerful men sexually assault them - bum pinching is sexual assault, as is boob grabbing and rubbing dicks against arses in lifts or group photos, just in case you wondered, or they are asked about their sex lives, or have horrible innuendo directed at them (eg the munch on your tarts comment), then they will leave those jobs and go and work elsewhere, and the pipeline of talented women reaching senior positions breaks.

We are all capable of worrying about women in Afghanistan as well, you know.

And yeah, if some women are rubbing their tits against men in their workplace, and saying they would like to unwrap their package, and asking what they do in bed with their boyfriends or girlfriends, “cancel” them too. If by cancel you mean “hold them to account for their behaviour” - which is what I mean by it.

It’s not a race to the bottom. I very much hope you are not in a senior position at work or in any position where woman may come to you after “one or two comments” just to be told to pipe down and be thankful they aren’t Afghani.

It's hilarious to compare us to Afghanistan. People that do things like bottom pinch don't usually stop there. If they know they can get away with it, the behaviour escalates.

I agree.

All unsubstantiated social media garbage. You would have been top journalists on the News of the World in its heyday. What Wallace is accused of is pretty low level juvenile stuff. And Chris Evans, he's a talented presenter & DJ. TGI Friday was brilliant. He married Billi Piper, so what. No crime there. She was better off with him than the goon Lawrence Fox. Get a life.

Her taste in men is questionable; Laurence Fox?

It's not remotely low level. Wallace's behaviour is of the type that wouldn't be tolerated in ANY workplace, made worse by an above reproach culture that seems to have persisted at the BBC (a culture that has probably been mirrored in all areas of showbiz).
I think this is just the thin end of the wedge, there will be lots of people (men, mainly) in showbiz worried about how they've conducted themselves over the years.
If nothing else, what has happened with Wallace will hopefully serve as part of a bigger culture shift.

OMG - Yes, I remember the episode of TFI Friday where he video recorded a female member of staff going for a wee on the toilet and broadcast it to the entire nation. I was horrified at the time and ever since have been paranoid about secret cameras in public toilet cubicles. Absolutely vile invasion of privacy, disgusting.

I had to deal with Chris Evans when he was presenting The Big Breakfast back in the day.

I won't say much because I imagine it would get taken down anyway, but I'll just say that frankly I'm amazed he's still working as a broadcaster and I'm guessing there's a reason why he no longer appears on the BBC or Channel 4.

I so agree with your post. And what about John Barrowman…unbelievably he did things like play the piano with his penis whilst on stage out of audience sight but in view of staff…sounds amusing…definitely not when in context and the other stuff he did,

Chris Evan’s behaviour is not rumour but documented.

Similar issues:
Was sexual harassment in the workplace legal in the 1990s?
No it wasn't. So yes it's potentially still an issue.

Who is liable for this:
Ultimately the employer. Therefore Evans own media company and by extension C4.

Different issues:
When did this occur and is it ongoing?
The relevance of this is the whole 'lessons learned' mantra of the BBC and other media employers.

The BBC has to demonstrate that it CURRENTLY operates within the law and is accountable because, the licence fee.

Wallace is current and post a billion scandals. Evans seems to predate that.

So whilst I do think Evans behaviour WAS potentially problematic and perhaps there is something there, the bigger issue is it ongoing and is that work culture still being deemed ok by the likes of C4 and the BBC. It's about them as organisations as much as it is about individuals. It's the whole 'everyone knew' issue.

If Evans no longer is behaving in that manner thats different to someone still working and doing it. Because ongoing liability and accountability.

I note the allegations against Brand were strong enough to go to the police with and were part of an ongoing pattern.

Also the allegations against Wallace are not simply banter. People seem to be illiterate in understanding this though. There were pages on MN ignoring this 'minor' point yesterday.

I think I'm now up to counting five allegations of potential sexual assault and two of indecency as well as the more general complaint of sexual harassment. This morning it's being reported that he apparently had the nickname 'Dirk' on set after fictional porn star Dirk Diggler. And theres a massive paper trial of complaints that have seemingly been ignored. Wallace has been officially warned previously too and several of these complaints post date that.

That's a current institutional failure after the BBC said they would review historic complaints and the complaints system.

These differences are important to know and understand.

Thanks @RedToothBrush good summary

Chris Evans radio show back in the 90s was very uncomfortable to listen to at time - car crash Radio! He wasn't hiding his behaviour in any way. I guess he was aiming for the shock jock thing.
Unlike GW he has realised that he needed to reform his image big time.

I suspect he is not going to get cancelled now though, because so many ppl owe their careers to CE.

I think where people comitted crimes like - rape, trying to have sex with underage people, sexual groping then absolutely there should be no expiry date on that behaviour. Saying that people like that have been allowed to/have been cunning enough to not face repercussions for 25 years therefore its not fair to make them face repercussions now is ridiculous. If someone's "grown up" and their happy life is suddenly disrupted because of what they did in the 90s then GOOD.

On the other hand if they were behaving like sleezy gits in the past but weren't called out at the time and now don't behave like sleezy gits then that's different. Its not the same as saying it was ok. But its more important IMO for the BBC to put a stop to hostile work environments that exist not. But someone like Gregg Wallace was acting like a sleezy git for years, was told he was upsetting people and kept doing it. He absolutely needed stopping and boohoo that he has to face consequences.

Of course, there is quite an overlap between people acting like sleezy gits who are also serious sexual predators.

Absolutely.
He gets worse and worse.
Such an incredibly nasty piece of work.

What’s happening to women in Afghanistan is the end game of the dehumanisation of women. Allowing men to treat women as objects is where it starts. That’s why we need to be very concerned about sexual harassment in schools, workplaces, gyms, everywhere. We need to be vocal, call out bad behaviour and make it clear that we are not just Handmaids for the pleasure of men.

100% this.

The whole 'but Afghanistan is worse' thing pisses me off.

There is very little as individuals or even countries that we can do in practical terms to help women in Afghanistan.

Sexual harassment in our own country that occurs on a daily basis is something we CAN do something about and have an actual effect in practical terms. So we SHOULD try and challenge it.

If there's something we CAN do why don't we do it rather than saying 'oh we should ignore this and sit on our hands because those women have it much worse '.

I sometimes wonder if people can actually hear themselves and what they are saying.

I've never liked him. Deeply unpleasant and way too full of himself.

I remember reading an article in the Sunday Times about him and it mentioned him pulling his jogging bottoms down in a meeting to reveal an erection. Disgusting!

I can't find the article now but did find this from the Mirror in 2016. Top Gear’s Chris Evans hit with fresh bullying claims as he’s mocked for flashing his penis at work.

Among the discussion, the group claimed that Evans would often expose his penis and even get fully naked while working on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast in the 1990s.
One dubbed it an ‘early morning ritual’, while Waddell said: “It was as regular as clockwork… with lots of wiggling”.
Evans has previously spoken about getting his penis out in front of his work colleagues, admitting he thought it was "the funniest thing in the world".
While Rowan Somerville said: "I remember those naked days. An emanation of orange, like autumn come early as if there was a russet coloured burst of light from a not very dangerous firework."

I have often wondered why his past has not caught up with him. I don't think saying that the things were different in the 90s excuses his appalling behaviour.

@BluePoet it seems that he 'stepped down' from Top Gear around about the time of the police investigation in 2016.

He also got sacked from a couple of things IIRC - though that was for turning up drunk or late rather than sexual harassment.

He owned Ginger Productions so there was no one more senior to sack him from TFI Friday and DFYT.

I am in no way saying that the time period excuses his behaviour, and if more stuff came out that wasn't known about at the time Virgin Radio hired him (2019?) then they might take action now. I also think, unlike GW, if anything else came out, CE is probably savvy enough to make immediate apologies etc,

I have no doubt at all that whatever CE was accused of in the 90s is true, it was such a toxic work environment at times but so many media companies in the 90s were the same (not condoning it BTW).

It really comes down to whether people feel he should be punished for things he did 20 years ago or because he's cleaned up his act he is able to get away with it.

It really comes down to whether people feel he should be punished for things he did 20 years ago or because he's cleaned up his act he is able to get away with it.

What punishment would work? Virgin Radio sacking him? Enough people being disgusted that they tune out of his radio show and he’s sacked for poor figures?

I am not being snarky, I am genuinely curious as to how this might work on something like this where he no longer works at the place it happened.