Last year, former Mad Men writer Kater Gordon accused series creator Matthew Weiner of telling her, one night as they worked alone together, that he “deserved to see her naked,” then fired her a year later. Weiner denied the charges then, and re-addressed them in an interview with Vanity Fair this week, claiming that he doesn’t remember harassing Gordon.
“I really don’t remember saying that,” he told Vanity Fair. “I’m not hedging to say it’s not impossible that I said that, but I really don’t remember saying it.”
There are a lot of double negatives in that sentence, so it’s not clear to me if Weiner is saying it is not impossible he harassed Gordon, or if he is saying he’s not saying it’s not impossible he harassed Gordon, but either way, he’s rolling with it. “What I can see is, it was 10 years ago and I don’t remember saying it. When someone says you said something, like the experience we just had right now—I don’t remember saying that,” he said. “I never felt that way and I never acted that way towards Kater.”
Gordon told Vanity Fair the incident with Weiner “was not an isolated incident, but it was the most affecting,” adding, “Bullies with unchecked power create environments of fear.” Mad Men writer/television wizard Marti Noxon backed up Gordon not long after she came forward her her allegation, noting Weiner was “an ‘emotional terrorist’ who will badger, seduce and even tantrum in an attempt to get his needs met,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Truly hard to believe a man whose career highlight consisted of creating a show about a group of sympathetic womanizers would comport himself in such a way. but here we are.