Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus FSU.
If you’re anything like me and grew up watching American Idol, Ryan Seacrest was a familiar face that you would see once a week on Tuesday nights at 9 with his Crest white smile and overly gelled hair. As the all-too-famous glamorized frat boy that we knew and loved Ryan Seacrest to be, he, along with many other men in the Hollywood spotlight, has been accused of sexual harassment, something that has been known to demolish careers. The list of men with allegations like this goes on and on, plaguing them with negative stereotypes and ultimately ruining their street cred and, more importantly, their careers. We’ve seen this with American news anchor, Matt Lauer who went from making around $25 million a year to not being able to score a job at a supermarket. It’s ridiculous to think that these men in such positions think that they have the power to do whatever they want with women and not think that their career will be compromised. It sickens me to think about all of the men who have done this and about the fact that this list of men is so long, it needs to be alphabetized. You can find the list here.
Despite the accusations made against him, Seacrest still covered the famous red carpet at Sunday’s Academy Awards. As the algorithm goes, the woman who stood up and accused the very successful American television personality of sexual harassment was released from her job as his stylist and such allegations were denied by Seacrest. He has gained support from Kelly Ripa on their live television show. Other stars such as Jennifer Lawrence and Jimmy Kimmel have spoken out about the issue. J Law said, “I can’t imagine him being sexual” in an interview with Howard Stern. Jimmy Kimmel hinted at the idea of giving Seacrest the benefit of the doubt and not accusing him of sexual harassment unless he is actually found guilty.
As Seacrest was stationed on the red carpet at this past Sunday’s Academy Awards, all five best actress nominees, including Meryl Streep and Margot Robbie, decided to skip his interview for E!, blatantly showing that they weren’t here for him. Some of those who did agree to the interview seemed to have different reactions to the accused sexual predator. For example, it seems like Taraji P. Henson was definitely throwing shade when she told him, “The universe has a way of taking care of the good people, you know what I mean?” She looked directly into his eyes and pinched his cheek, which probably bruised his ego quite a bit with her insinuation. However, other stars had different reactions to Seacrest, including Tiffany Haddish who expressed how proud she was of him and how she remembered when he started his career.
Courtesy: Oscars
There are definitely some mixed reviews about Ryan Seacrest and I guess some people just have different ways of looking at sexual harassment accusations. With his career and street cred (or should I say carpet cred?) on the line, my bet is that he was sweating last night, especially since five huge names in Hollywood wouldn’t give him the time of day. Even though it seems that he will never get convicted, given that his lawyers are saying there isn’t enough evidence to convict him of anything, people will probably look at him a lot differently. We like to put trust in familiar faces that we see on TV and we don’t want to think that they could ever mess up. People do make mistakes but this mistake might be a little too big, Ryan.
Courtesy: Entertainment Weekly