Kurt Metzger made waves earlier this month—to put it extremely mildly—when he went on multiple Facebook rants about how he felt the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York should have handled the allegations of sexual assault brought against one of its members. You see, the UCB decided to ban the alleged serial rapist after hearing from multiple alleged victims. This was not a criminal or even civil proceeding, just a private business doing what it deemed necessary to protect its members.
Metzger’s responses were prompted in part by a screengrab from a post in a private Facebook group, which was written on behalf of the alleged victims. The comedian and former Inside Amy Schumer writer railed against the “mob mentality” of people who thought that the UCB’s actions were fair. But any point he might have had was lost in his vitriol—even though he repeatedly claimed not to be attacking the victims in these posts, Metzger ended up conflating survivors with his detractors on at least one occasion.
The fallout was immediate. Many women tweeted at Amy Schumer directly, inquiring about how she could employ someone who was seemingly propping up rape culture by not only questioning the validity of the claims made in the UCB debacle, but by demanding that they meet his burden of proof. Metzger went on about how erroneous everyone else was being in jumping to conclusions, which is why he needed to see the case tried before him, while also decrying the court of public opinion that had already convicted the alleged rapist. Schumer first tried to distance herself from Metzger’s actions by saying she could not be more opposed to them; when the furor didn’t subside, she followed up that tweet with messages that Metzger didn’t work for her because her sketch show was no longer a thing. Schumer later clarified that the show is merely on hiatus, not canceled, and that she’d rather shift the focus back to the larger issue of sexual assault.
Now, nearly two weeks and a couple of podcasts later, Metzger says he believes the alleged victim. (Well, the one he spoke with. There are reportedly multiple.) The comedian went on SiriuxXM’s Bennington Show yesterday, where he once again asked his detractors to take their focus off of Schumer. Metzger also claims he spoke with both the alleged rapist and one of his alleged victims, and he is now firmly on the side of the accuser. He discussed at length the horror he experienced just listening to the alleged victim’s tale: “If you knew the half of what I know… if I sound a little off… What she told me makes me so angry…. What she told me was so upsetting…I’m not blowing her spot up…it will come out.”
Metzger also called in to Chicago’s “Feminist Happy Hour” show; he spoke with host Alicia Swiz—who has contributed to The A.V. Club—to whom he admitted that misinformation had sparked his initial post. Metzger says the whole experience has taken a toll on him, and he had suicidal thoughts after just hearing about the alleged sexual assault, which forced him to deal with his own past abuse. Seeing as all it took to bring Metzger around was a conversation with one sexual assault survivor—plus hundreds of Facebook comments, as well as confronting his own abuse—this whole rape culture thing should be a breeze to fix.