Chelsea Handler said comedians Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari can’t just return to the stage and “act like nothing happened.”
Louis C.K. walked away from the spotlight last year after admitting to a variety of sexual misconduct accusations. Ansari was accused in January of sexual assault by one woman; he has claimed the incident was “completely consensual.”
“They have to address what happened. People want to talk about it,” the 43-year-told comedian told Huffington Post in a piece published Wednesday. (RELATED: This New Louis C.K. Movie Has Harvey Weinstein Written All Over It)
Chelsea Handler speaks onstage at EMILY’s List’s “Resist, Run, Win” Pre-Oscars Brunch on February 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for EMILY’s List)
“You can’t just ignore and throw it under the rug,” she added. “You have to talk about what you’ve learned, where you’ve come from and where you are now.”
Handler continued, “I think that’s the issue everyone has with it and why it’s such a big deal. You can’t just come back and act like nothing happened. You did a bad thing — depending on which person you’re talking about. It’s about taking responsibility, ultimately.”
The comments come following C.K.’s recent appearance at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. The club owner, Noam Dworman, told the New York Times that the comedian was welcomed by the audience who he said gave the actor a standing ovation ahead of his bit.
As previously reported, the comedian was accused in November by multiple women of sexual misconduct. The next day, he said in a statement that the allegations against him were “true.”
“I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them,” the statement read. “Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.”