Tavis Smiley Fights Back. Hard.

Tavis Smiley, who you may recall is one of the many men who’ve lost their job as a result of sexual misconduct allegations, spoke out on Good Morning America about the situation, and as much as I may disagree with Tavis about a whole lotta stuff, I have to say, he sounds pretty credible. Listen:

Now, more than likely, someone is going to read my statement above and be all, “What do you mean he sounds credible? You can’t decide on his guilt or innocence based on a statement he’s made on a talk show.”

To which I’d simply say, “Oh really?” Because apparently guilt or innocence is decided purely by the court of public opinion these days, and since I’m part of that court, that’s what I’ve decided.

As expected, Tavis has admitted to having relationships with women with whom he’s worked. But as he rightly pointed out, there are a whole lot of marriages that have resulted from people meeting and falling in love AT WORK. And in response to the question about his power over those women, he said:

“First of all I own the company, and there is a team of people that run the company and I have never given anyone any employment instruction to do anything to anyone with whom I had a consensual relationship.”

He’s also pissed off at PBS for the way they conducted their “investigation.”

‘They never informed me a complaint was alleged. I was never told there was an investigation. I found out about it from former staffers who were getting strange phone calls asking strange questions, so I was unaware of it to begin with,’ said Smiley.

‘But after finding out about it, my attorneys contacted the PBS investigators and offered to have me come talk to them. They did this for weeks and refused to talk to me.’

He then added: ‘They were prepared to close this investigation without talking to me only under the threat of lawsuit did they agree to sit down and talk to me.’

That talk with the network which has distributed his show for 14 seasons did not provide Smiley with his desired outcome.

‘The PBS investigators refused to review any of my personal documentation, refused to provide me the names of any accusers, refused to speak to my current staff, and refused to provide me any semblance of due process to defend myself against allegations from unknown sources,’ he said.

‘Their mind was made up.’

I don’t know about y’all, but that sounds pretty shady on PBS’s part. There is no point in “investigating” when you have already pre-determined the outcome. *cough* Mueller *cough*

Tavis isn’t going down without a major fight. ‘I’m going to do anything to protect my reputation,’ he said. And I can’t blame the guy. And as Daisy and I said in this video, we see him as perhaps the turning point in this entire #metoo discussion.

We’ll have to wait and see.