Amy Schumer has clarified statements she made earlier today about the recent social media posts of her friend and Inside Amy Schumer writer Kurt Metzger. Schumer was ostensibly scheduled to speak with PBS’s Charlie Rose this week about her new book, The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo. But that was before her former employee started drawing online hatred with his comments about the “mob mentality” that led the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater to ban a man who’d allegedly sexually assaulted numerous women. Schumer—who’s spent the last 24 hours being repeatedly asked to talk about Metzger and his views—aggressively rejected the vitriolic stand-up’s comments, while still expressing her care and concern for him.
“Kurt’s my friend,” Schumer said, asserting that his vastly different perspectives made him an asset in the writer’s room. “I love him.” But, she added, “I’m not on Facebook so I don’t read his crazy rants. Like he just—he gets something from going after people, making them mad. That is not representative of me at all. I—and, you know, I’ve asked him, just, ‘Can you just stop?’ Because it comes back to me.”
Schumer then asserted that Metzger’s trolling and baiting—while being “the problem, no question”—was really just a distracting sideshow from real discussions about, in Rose’s words, “a smart understanding of what rape has become.” Schumer denounced the accusations of lying—like those Metzger has been constantly, infuriatingly hinting toward, if never outright stating—that are often lobbed against women who say they’ve been raped, comparing them to the Salem Witch Trials:
“We all need to be empowering each other… I was sexually assaulted. I encourage women to come out. And I want men to hear what happens, so there’s no confusion. Because people have different understandings of what sexual assault is, what rape is, so let’s all get on the same page so that it happens less.”
As to questions about the fate of her Comedy Central sketch show, Schumer reiterated that she’s currently focusing on other pursuits, despite the show’s recent renewal by the network. The full Charlie Rose interview airs tomorrow night on PBS.