Sean Combs and Kevin Spacey get one thing right about forgiveness
Spoiler: they're not owed it
Recently I spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio about Not So Sorry and the failures of American ideas about forgiveness. Fresh in the news cycle and on my mind was the horrifying footage of producer/rapper/businessman Sean “Puffy/Diddy/P Diddy” Combs kicking and punching his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, footage that had surfaced just as Combs is at the center of a rising tide of accusations of violent sexual abuse. The video, filmed on a hotel security camera in 2016, had somehow been hidden until now, but it was damning, and Combs had no excuse to offer for his behavior.
In a statement he released soon after the video emerged, Combs said:
“I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry. But I’m committed to be a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.”
Combs did not offer any apologies directly to Ventura, who sued Combs for sexual and physical assault last November, but there’s something notable in his statement. He explicitly says “I’m not asking for forgiveness.”
Jennifer Packer, “Say Her Name,” 2017. From the Whitney Museum.
Although I’ve enjoyed some of the records Combs has produced1 and laughed my way through the “Jeffrey” scene in the film Get Him to the Greek2, in which Combs plays what we assumed at that point was a cartoonish version of himself spazzing out on a drug that contains weed, opium, heroin, MDMA, methadone, morphine and peyote, I don’t think I’ll be watching that movie again any time soon. It’s a funny scene, and, sure Combs made some good records.
But once you see the footage of Combs knocking Ventura to the floor and then kicking her as she tries to flee him, the records don’t sound that great, and the movie just isn’t as funny. Combs may or may not be telling the truth when he says he’s going to therapy and rehab. But when he says he’s not asking for forgiveness, he’s correct about one thing: he’s not owed it. If a person isn’t repentant toward the victims of their abuse, why should those victims be forgiving?
A recent interview with the actor Kevin Spacey surfaced some of the same questions. Spacey, who says his home is being foreclosed upon due to legal bills, has been accused of sexually abusive behavior by more than 50 different men. He’s thus far been acquitted in court, but the accusations point to a serial pattern of behavior, one in which an Oscar-winning actor allegedly took advantage of younger and less powerful men.
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan3, Spacey offered a bizarre and unrepentant explanation for his behavior.
When asked to clarify what he meant by "pushing the boundaries", the double Oscar winner said: "Being too handsy, touching someone sexually in a way that I didn't know at the time they didn't want."
Pressed on the potential for this being criminal conduct, Mr Spacey said he has "been gentle with people" and he would not use the word "grope" to describe his actions. […]
Asked if he could understand that a young actor might worry that someone with his influence could damage their career if they rejected his advances, Mr Spacey said: "Yes".
The actor said that he is ready to "take accountability" for some of his past actions, which he describes as "bad, bad, bad behaviour".
But he also said that "a whole lot of people" have made false claims against him.
Again, what’s missing here is Spacey offering any kind of apology to the men he was “handsy” with. How is it possible that Spacey “didn’t know at the time” that these men didn’t want to be touched? Surely, the physical reactions of freezing, flinching, pushing someone’s hand away or a verbal “no” would be an indication.
Beyond that, however, is the vagueness of “taking accountability.” By now, we’ve seen so many of these kinds of interviews with those accused of abuse that phrases like “taking accountability” unaccompanied by any kind of specific plan for doing so should serve as a massive red flag. In the Catholic church, when an abusive priest is outed, we’re usually told he’s going away for a period of “prayer and penance,” which feels just as vague as what celebrities say about “working on themselves.” It allows them to feel that they’re off the hook and now eligible for forgiveness while offering nothing to the victims of their abuse.
In a different interview earlier this month, Spacey said that Hollywood itself is unforgiving, claiming that:
“I live in an industry in which there is a tremendous amount of conversation about redemption, from a lot of people who are very serious people in very serious positions who believe in it. That guy who finally got out of prison who was wrongly accused … We see so many people saying, ‘Let’s find a path for that person. Let’s help that person rejoin society.’
“But there is an odd situation if you are in the entertainment industry, you are not offered that kind of a path.”
The absurdity of this argument is ridiculous. Just ask Louis C.K., Brett Kavanaugh, Dustin Hoffman, James Franco, Jonny Depp, Shia LeBeouf and the many, many other actors and musicians, politicians and athletes accused of abuse who’ve either held onto their careers or are now engaged in an attempts at a comeback. In America, anyone with power and money can find their way to forgiveness, especially when it comes to forgiving themselves. They don’t even have to ask for it.
In November’s election, a man accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women could very well be re-elected to the presidency. He’s never asked for forgiveness, either. But millions of people are about to offer it to him, because refusing to forgive someone is still understood to be morally wrong, even in the case of a person who’s unrepentant. I don’t know what it will take to shift that kind of thinking. But I do know that it condemns abuse victims to a lifetime of watching their abusers cling to money, power and fame. But America, after all, loves a comeback, even when it comes at the expense of those who’ve been abused.
Mary J Blige’s What’s the 411 remains, IMO, a classic, along with Biggie Smalls’ Ready to Die, and Mariah Carey’s “Honey” still holds up.
Also starring Russel Brand, himself the center of multiple accusations of sexual abuse, as well as Jonah Hill, whose ex girlfriend released a series of controlling, bizarre messages Hill sent her in 2023.
Morgan, a former tabloid editor, is no friend to abuse victims himself, FWIW.