Jen Kirkman sets the record straight on Louis CK and those sexual misconduct rumors

When tracing the timeline of sexual misconduct allegations against comedian Louis CK, Jen Kirkman’s name often comes up. Even here on The A.V. Club, we’ve mentioned the episode of her podcast I Seem Fun Kirkman posted, then subsequently deleted, in 2015 that brought the rumors to the attention of the public after it was picked up by Jezebel. (That’s opposed to within the comedy community, where CK’s alleged habit of forcing women to watch him masturbate has been rumored for years. It even surfaced in a Gawker blind item in 2012.) Now Kirkman is profiled in a new interview with The Village Voice, where she picks apart the tangle of misconceptions that have followed that fateful podcast.

Referencing rumors previously referenced in several blind items, Kirkman makes clear: “There are rumors out there that Louis takes his dick out at women. He has never done that to me. I never said he did, I never implied that he did.” As she explains it, her statement was more about the perpetual state of readiness that women are forced to be in when dealing with their male peers. “What I said was, when you hear rumors about someone, and they ask you to go on the road with them, this is what being a woman in comedy is like—imagine if there’s always a chance of rain over your head but [with] men, there isn’t. So you go, ‘Should I leave the house with an umbrella, or not?’”

As for whether there’s any truth behind the rumors, Kirkman isn’t sure. “Sometimes there’s nothing there. I think this might be a case of there’s nothing there,” she says. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and if any women want to come forward and say what he’s done, I’ll totally back them, because I believe women. But I just don’t know any… I’m the one that opened it up by doing that dumb podcast, and I thought people would understand the nuance of what I was saying, and they didn’t.”

Kirkman goes on to say that she still talks to CK on a regular basis. She also says that, although “I don’t know why Tig is talking about this stuff”—referring to Notaro’s public call for CK to “handle” the rumors, and a recent episode of Notaro’s One Mississippi that has a scene recalling the allegations—she’s still friends with Notaro, a point she later reiterated in a series of tweets that have since been deleted.

[Note: Jezebel, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]