Mayim Bialik apologizes after being targeted for victim blaming: 'I hope you can all forgive me'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
Mayim Bialik took to Facebook Wednesday to apologize for her lengthy New York Times op-ed about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which received major backlash from fans.
Readers previously took issue with a portion of the 41-year-old’s piece in which she wrote that she avoided harassment in Hollywood by presenting herself as a modest person.
While describing how she wasn’t the typical Hollywood pretty-girl archetype, the “Big Bang Theory” star mentioned how her choices in the business as an adult have helped her get by.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
“I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise,” described Bialik in the op-ed published October 13. “I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.”
Many readers took her words as evidence that she was shaming women in Hollywood who fell victim for the way they dressed or acted.
Bialik appeared in a Facebook live video Monday where she described regretting how her op-ed has been received.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
“It has become clear to me that there are people that think I implied, or overtly stated, that you can be protected from assault from the clothing you wear,” she said. “That is absolutely not what my intention was and I think that it is safe for me to [say]… there’s no way to avoid being the victim of assault by what you wear or the way you behave.”
She added, “I really do regret that this became what it became.”
Weinstein, a 65-year-old Hollywood producer, has been accused of raping, assaulting and harassing women during his decades-long career.