Actor Kevin Sorbo said that he wasn’t trying to jump on the #MeToo bandwagon when he recently shared a story about how Gianni Versace reportedly hit on him back in the 1980s.
He and his wife, Sam, who came to the Faithwire newsroom last week to promote their new film, “Let There Be Light,” also weighed in on the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal that has been plaguing Hollywood of late.
“The casting couch has been around forever,” Kevin Sorbo said. “And I feel sorry for the decades of mostly women that have had to put up with the crap they’ve had to put up with.”
He said that it is tragic to see people engage in a system that they feel requires them to compromise themselves in an effort to receive work. And Sam Sorbo added that she has a theory as to why such horrific antics have so permeated Hollywood.
“The reason that they figure ‘that’s the way it is’ is that we live in a culture that promotes survival of the fittest and Darwinism and evolution,” she said. “We’re teaching children in school that they’re accidents of nature and that survival of the fittest is the law of the land. And if survival of the fittest is the law of the land, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with what Harvey Weinstein did.”
Listen to Kevin and Sam Sorbo discuss these issues — and plenty more — below:
The Sorbos described observing the desperation in Hollywood firsthand, with Kevin saying that “it’s a domino effect of people having to rely on other people.”
Sorbo also spoke about recent remarks he made on comedian Adam Carolla’s show about Versace coming onto him back in the 1980s. The actor said that he wasn’t trying to jump onto the #MeToo train and that he had, in fact, wrote about it in his book years ago.
“[The media] want to make it look like, ‘Look what happened to me,'” he said. “It came out years ago. Why didn’t they talk about it then? I didn’t hide behind anything.”
Sam Sorbo suggested that the recent #MeToo campaign — comprised of people sharing their sexual assault stories — likely fueled the media coverage surrounding Sorbo’s recent commentary about his encounter with Versace.
But Sorbo said he was merely sharing a story about what unfolded and he even laughed at Versace’s response to his push-back.
“He puts his hand on my thigh and I said, ‘Gianni don’t go there … it’s not going to happen,'” Sorbo recounted. “And he says, ‘You must make love to everything in life.’ And I said, ‘I’m on this road, you’re on this road.’ And he said. ‘I’ll build a bridge.'”