In April, production was suspended on Being Mortal because of Bill Murray’s behavior. We found out soon enough that Murray had behaved inappropriately with women on set, and that he was (according to sources) too “handsy.” Murray has a long history of being inappropriate, predatory and just a world-class jackass to all kinds of people, so I completely believe his behavior rose to the level of needing an in-house investigation and a suspended production (it’s still suspended, by the way). But how does Murray justify it? Well, he was interviewed on CNBC at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting and he said many words.
Murray did not provide specifics on what happened, but instead talked about how he was coping with the fallout from it. Murray characterized it as a “difference of opinion” with a woman on the set.
“I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way,” Murray said. “The company, the movie studio, wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out, investigate it. and so they stopped the production. But as of now, we’re talking and we’re trying to make peace with each other. I think that’s where the real issue is, between our peace. We’re both professionals. We like each other’s work. We like each other, I think, and if you can’t really get along and trust each other, there’s no point in going further working together or making a movie as well.”
He allowed that he’s been spending the time since production was halted doing not much else beyond thinking about what happened, adding that “It’s been quite an education for me… And I feel like if I don’t see that, you know, the world is different than it was when I was a little kid. You know, what I always thought was funny as a little kid isn’t necessarily the same as what’s funny now. Things change and the times change, so it’s important for me to figure it out. And I think the most important thing is that it’s best for the other person. I thought about it, and if it’s not best for the other person, doesn’t matter what happens for me.”
Murray said he pondered, “How could I misperceive? How could I be so inaccurate and so insensitive when you think you’re being sensitive to some sensibility that you’ve had for a long time? So we’re talking about it. We’re, I think we’re gonna make peace with it. I’m very optimistic about that.”
He added that he is trying to learn from what happened. “I really think that’s a really sad puppy that can’t learn anymore. I don’t want to be that sad dog and I have no intention of it. I’ve, what would make me the happiest would be to, you know, put my boots on and for both of us to go back into work and be able to trust each other and work at the work that we’ve both spent a lot of time developing the skill of, and hopefully do something that’s good for more than just the two of us, but for a whole crew of people, a whole crew of movie makers. and the movie studio as well.”
He’s absolutely saying that he behaved inappropriately with a female costar, right? That’s exactly what it sounds like. I immediately checked IMDB to see which actresses were attached to the film and there’s only one woman listed in the cast: Keke Palmer. Did Bill Murray put his hands on Keke? That explains a lot about why the studio is taking this so seriously and why the production is still suspended. I hate that Murray basically outed Keke as his victim though, because you know he’s putting a target on her back. All of Murray’s bro-defenders are going to go after her as “the bitch who couldn’t take a joke” or worse. It f–king sucks, all of this.
Photos courtesy of Instar and Avalon Red.
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- Bill Murray attend the “New Worlds: The Cradle Of Civilization” photocall during the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival on July 16, 2021 in Cannes, France.,Image: 621831541, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Olivier Huitel / Avalon
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- Bill Murray at The 2022 Governors Awards in The Ray Dolby Ballroom on Friday, March 25, 2022 at Ovation Hollywood, CA.,Image: 673246895, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: ©A.M.P.A.S. All rights reserved., Model Release: no, Credit line: sb / Avalon
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- Bill Murray arrives on the red carpet of the 94th Oscars® at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA, on Sunday, March 27, 2022.,Image: 673570434, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Avalon Licensing Ltd. do not claim any Copyright of the attached image WORLD RIGHTS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- -New York, NY – 20211115 New York Premiere of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. -PICTURED: Bill Murray -PHOTO by: JOHN NACION/startraksphoto.com This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Startraks Photo for licensing fee and rights information at sales@startraksphoto.com or call +1 212 414 9464 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Startraks Photo reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded
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- Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is seen during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss the on-going federal response to Covid-19 on Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.,Image: 610355620, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: usage worldwide, Model Release: no, Credit line: Greg Nash – Pool via CNP / DPA Picture Alliance / Avalon
Typical entitled male response when making a joke at a woman’s expense: “I thought it was hilarious, it’s not my fault she didn’t.
I wonder what in his response makes you think he’s saying “it’s not my fault she doesn’t see it that way”. I got the total opposite from his comments – I was expecting that from him and he surprised me by being more thoughtful than I assumed he would be.
Murray said he pondered, “How could I misperceive? How could I be so inaccurate and so insensitive when you think you’re being sensitive to some sensibility that you’ve had for a long time?”
I’m not saying he should be forgiven or anything (that’s obviously not up to me), but it definitely seems like he’s at least stating that he needs to learn and do better. That said, given the stories about other bad behavior from him who knows if he is sincere or not. I’m glad they halted production and are taking this seriously.
To paraphrase Pretty Woman: Do they take the boys aside in gym class and teach them how to gaslight us?
Amen!!!
There’s a great clip from 30 Rock that I think about in these situations, where Jack is having to work for the new CEO, who is the daughter of the old CEO. She sexually harasses him and he tells Liz Lemon that it was gross and icky when he was sexually harassed – not sexy and fun like when men do it to women. I thought it so brilliantly captured how men, who are usually on the offending end, think their sexual harassment is “funny.” I wish I knew how to turn that moment into a gif because if I hear one more guy say that they were being funny, or that the woman liked it, I will scream (actually, I’ve already screamed a million times over the past seven years, but I’d scream some more).
I rewatched that episode recently. That line is genius.
I never finished that show, I watched half back around 2011 loved it, tried to finish it lately and it’s not funny to me anymore. BUT though it aged poorly it makes some, probably many, good feminist points. The episode with the “sexy baby” lady is especially memorable and poignant. All the ways Jack always negs or criticizes Liz are carefully chosen to expose how normal those things are as “insults” to women or things that we need to “fix.”
That Sexy Baby episode made so many good points. I was new in leadership at that time (2011) and it really hit home that you have NO idea what baggage people bring to work with them and why they make they decisions they do. 30 Rock wasn’t perfect (lord, it wasn’t perfect at all) but I am a better feminist because of many of the lessons on there.
Yea, I think Tina Fey is a good feminist and so she represents a lot of those issues well, but she is not good on racial issues. Very much a white feminist, which is a bummer because I really used to like her. Less so now.
HARD disagree about Tina being a good feminist. She….has a lot to learn about intersectional feminism. Take a look at the ‘bit’ she liked to trot out about her daughters talking like exoticized sex workers. She made that joke more than once on late night talk shows and it was effing gross.
That said, the Sexy Baby episode was excellent.
It’s older men like this that give strong credence to the ageist idea that older men are “disgusting, gross, perverts, smell bad” etc. He probably DOES smell like ointment and stale pee, and won’t stop shoving his nastiness onto women who aren’t interested in him (read: 99% of women). I’m tired of these useless male specimens using “this isn’t funny ANY MORE?” to try and justify stuff that has always been unfunny and deeply creepy. I just can’t with these nasty flesh bags today.
Bill has to learn that we live in a different time now. What was tolerated in the past will no longer be and that the company can’t afford to let things slide anymore because he’s a famous and powerful actor.
It wasn’t funny then, and it isn’t funny now.
Keep your hands to yourself in the workplace. Not such a difficult thing to do.
How can he not know?? He chooses to behave in the same way. Men KNOW how to behave. Anything else is an excuse.
Of course he knows, but he’s never previously faced consequences. The fact is that if a man lives his whole live behaving this way, and women asking them to stop is not sufficient for them to actually stop, the only way to change behavior is for them to face consequences.
Yikes, poor Keke!
Whenever I hear this pathetic excuse, I think what the man using it really means is, “I thought what I did was funny, and I thought that the fact that she didn’t like it was even funnier.” There’s an awful lot of men who get off on women’s discomfort.
Amen, Miranda. Remember when there was a video that circulated a few years ago of Adam Sandler on some talk show where he placed his hand on the thigh of the woman sitting next to him. She just tried to casually brush it off and then he had to call it out and place his hand back there, even though she was uncomfortable but obviously felt pressured into laughing it off. It’s that kind of d-bag “don’t tell me what to do” power and control vibe that too many of these men get off on.
Women used to wear hatpins that came in handy for such liberties. One discreet stab took care of things.
That was Claire Foy on Graham Norton and Emma Thompson ended up switching seats with her to get him to stop.
Miranda, I think you nailed it. He gets off on it.
His “explanation” practically victimizes himself; he’s just a product of his times who is confused, but trying hard to learn and make sense of this new world! Bull. I’m 66 and I know clearly that getting handsy is inappropriate behavior. This kind of enrages me, just because it’s SO carefully crafted to make the woman seem unforgiving, etc. UGH.
I can’t think of a number low enough to express how little interest I have in how Bill Murray sexually harassing someone has made -Bill Murray- feel, and how it has negativity affected -Bill Murray-.
He seems like he can be a moody prick but calling him predatory is absurd. He’s never been accused of predatory behavior. Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, Dominique Kahn are all predatory. Bad choice of words.
He’d purposely rub his arm across a coworker’s breasts while “reaching across her” for things. He’s predatory.
I don’t think we should assume it’s Keke or name someone who hasn’t spoken out herself.
My first thought it was someone behind the camera, someone he felt was “lesser” in terms of “power”.
Sexual harassment is absolutely predatory. Groping is predatory. And all the little microaggressions like the “jokes” about women’s breasts or other body parts are ALSO predatory. They are frightening and intimidating and objectifying.
His behavior while filming Groundhog Day definitely seems to have been predatory. (Honestly he sounds like he was a giant dick to a lot of people in a lot of ways.)
Just because he did not actually rape anyone … that you or I know of … does not mean his behavior wasn’t “predatory.” Predators test boundaries and social norms all the time.
He certainly has a lot of long term accusations of abusive behaviour for someone who can’t possibly be predatory.
Something went down between him and Lucy Liu on Charlie’s Angels. So if that’s the case….I totally hate this for KeKe and I hope she has the support she deserves in this. I absolutely adore her.
I thought exactly the same thing, Ohrhilly. From what I remember about his treatment of Lucy Liu, it was absolutely racist. If indeed the person on the other end of his harassment was Keke Palmer, then I would bet money that whatever Murray did, there was a racist component to it.
Murray’s BS about ‘trying to learn’ might be more believable if he didn’t have a reputation for reveling in being a prick.
I do think some of these predatory behaviors might actually ramp up in older men because now they have the cover of an ageist society considering them feeble and harmless.
I’m in my thirties and once went to coffee with a man in his late seventies whose wife had just died. He kept coming to my work asking to talk to me about her purporting that his kids weren’t around for support. At the coffee shop, he proceeded to tell me he couldn’t stop thinking about the hug I’d given him when he first told me of his wife’s death then drew me out a map of how to access the back entrance of his home, explained that his father had had a “companion” after his mother’s death, and that he’d only “need me” a few days a week after work. I steered the conversation back to his wife and kids and gave him the community newsletter clipping I’d brought detailing some seniors’ group events. He scoffed at that idea because the women were “too old”. I then went home to my husband and burst into tears of shame and embarrassment. Nothing officially “bad” happened but I have a stomach ache just typing this out.
I’m so sorry. No shame came to YOU. My aunties tell me sooo many stories about these old men. I am telling you, they can be in nursing homes, barely able to move, and they are still grabbing asses. It’s not you, it’s them. It wasn’t you, it was him. You tried to do a nice, caring thing for a fellow human being. This is infuriating.
Thank you so much, Trina. I was surprised by my own reaction, actually. Intellectually, I *knew* I had nothing to be ashamed of…but that was definitely one of the feelings I could identify. I think its definitely one of those things that just gets ingrained in us….”Something gross just happened to me. How am *I* culpable?” Ugggggggh!
It really is. There’s so much pressure on women to yield to that kind of thinking at all times.
Omg. That’s horrifying. And all because you were trying to be nice. You did nothing wrong. He was a stupid as**ole.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. I think these feelings are totally normal (unfortunately) and the legacy of a society that looks at, for example, rape cases and worries foremost how the accusation is going to affect the rapist. All of these cases where the woman is nitpicked and found to be anything less than a perfect victim and then that imperfection used as rationale for why someone would attack her makes us wonder what we do wrong when other people behave inappropriately.
Humiliated. Powerless. Even scared in the moment or of any repercussions. His actions were grotesque and I’m so sorry that happened to you. Who taught/teaches men this was/is okay? WHO?
Oh Briar. I am so sorry that happened to you. I know exactly the kind of gross, shameful and icky feeling. You did nothing wrong, and my lord, he was so completely out of line, and EWWWW. I think sometimes, when something like that happens we CAN tink “well, how did I controibute to making this happen?” because it comes so far out of left field. But the truth is that many men are just ALWAYS looking for their chance to be disgusting. Not all of them, but many of them.
bullies are predators. There I fixed your comment for you.
As soon as I saw that Keke Palmer was the only woman cast, I figured it might be her even before Bill Murray’s apologetic interview. Or whatever this is, covering his behind to make it look like he’s sorry.
I know he’s a total weirdo and he seems to think this eccentric persona he’s built gives him license to do whatever he wants because he’s considered a comic legend. Maybe I’m missing what’s so great about Bill Murray but I have never seen a movie that I’ve liked him in. He was great as the corpse for the Mayor in Parks and Rec–just laid there in a coffin.
I read somewhere that Bill allegedly put his arm around a woman on set (KeKe?) and pulled her ponytail. Ick to the arm and to tug this woman’s hair??!! NO. I have a feeling this wasn’t the first time on set he felt it was “ok” for him to touch someone “in a funny way” like this while on the job. And then act like he was today years old to learn these actions aren’t appreciated. It’s never been funny.
If it was Keke, and to add the racism element in, maybe she told him never to touch her hair and he did it anyway in order to be the “funny” anti-Will Smith. Pretending to do it to “see if it was real.” You know, the kind of BS white people get up to when they feel comfortable racisming in public. Just guessing, speculating, connecting dots. *Hypotheses purely my own*
Incredibly gross. “Oh it’s so tough on little ol’ harmless me, having to learn how to deal with modern women who don’t have any sense of humor or any respect for my rights as a big time star to say or do whatever i want to them and their bodies”
This looks like Hollywood’s nightmare Me Too situation. Something that they can’t really fire the harasser over, because the financing for the project depends on their participation. If Big Star is fired, the project no longer exists, and they can only pay people for the work already done if the insurance company pays up. However, the insurance company isn’t accepting whatever happened as worthy of a production shutdown payout. And the other person involved, as is their right, is refusing to continue to work with Big Star Harasser.
All the This Is Unacceptables in the world aren’t going to come up with the millions of dollars it will take to do what is right.
And his ‘reflections’ read as threats, to me; Drop it, girly or there won’t be a movie.
“We like each other, I think, and if you can’t really get along and trust each other, there’s no point in going further working together or making a movie as well.”
” . . what would make me the happiest would be to, you know, put my boots on and for both of us to go back into work and be able to trust each other and work at the work . . .”
Went to look up the details. Turns out Aziz Ansari is the lead and directing, with Bill Murray supporting, so the funding probably is not solely centered on him and he could probably be replaced. It’s a Disney production, Searchlight is a subsidiary they picked up with the Fox acquisition, so this package may not have been put together in the mouse house.
It will indeed be interesting to see this play out. There are behaviors that are both unacceptable in a workplace and that the money people are not willing to set tens of millions of dollars on fire over.
Is there a pattern with WOC, Lucy Liu, Keke?
Bingo.
I…feel like he sounds more reflective than I would have guessed, but I suppose he’s got nothing else to do at the moment. He seems to have picked up on trust being an issue, but I don’t know that he understands how unsafe he can make people feel. It’s so disturbing to have your boundaries violated by someone more privileged than you & then be expected to work with them. I doubt he gets that. I hope the woman is getting the support she needs.
Incidentally, I recently listened to an interview with Andie MacDowell where she discussed working with him on Groundhog Day. While she didn’t say anything specific, she seemed overawed almost to the point of being fearful of Murray. It struck me as odd.
‘Murray characterized it as a “difference of opinion” with a woman on the set.’ What? No. Sheesh. Not everything is just a difference of opinion.
@Otaku fairy – YES! “difference of opinion” GAH! I’ve also heard “personality clash.” Like, NO! touching a woman because you’ve decided you own that right is not a difference of opinion or personality clash. What you’re doing is illegal and you got called out, scumbag!
Bill Murray has been a monumental DB since his SNL days. He and John Belushi were HORRIBLE to the female cast members and regularly cut them out of writing skits and told them “women just aren’t funny”. His wife, Jennifer Butler Murray, attributed the demise of their marriage to Bill’s “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behavior, physical abuse, sexual addictions and frequent abandonment”.
Nice guy…
Chevy Chase with better press.
Bingo.
Ha, I almost said something similar in my comment! He should be treated the way Chevy is, like a fucking pariah. NOBODY likes that guy, and it’s no secret.
Professional assholes like Murray are always doing things that *they* find funny. They don’t care if the recipient of the so-called joke feels the same way. I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for him to be called out because as far as I know, he’s always been like this.
All points aside about outing Keke Palmer as the victim (that’s atrocious), it doesn’t bode well for the movie that it only has one woman in the cast.