Andrew Callaghan responds to sexual allegations

there was a controversy a year ago where a woman came forward and said that you were pushy with her you respected the no you got the consent but you were pushy about it looking back can you tell the story of that what are the lessons you learned from it yeah I mean I've yet to speak on this for a lot of reasons mostly because it's just it was a hard time and it's a sensitive subject and I've wanted to prioritize the reporting but I think that now I'm uh ready being able to do so everything sort of started on um December 30th 2022 and that was the release date of the HBO project like I told you we didn't know when the movie was going to come out we weren't told that it was going to come out on that date until early November and so I was like oh my God here we go we had a movie coming out HBO had I didn't even know it was going to be them so every day for those 50 days to where I received word and to the movie announcement or to the movie release was like I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning you know what I mean it was like every day I just I saw the movie release date as the first day of like the rest of my life and so I remember the week of the movie release it was like every day I was like oh my God six days 5 days four days and when it became two days like I was so excited and so like honestly anxiety riddled because it was such a massive platform that I went out to the desert by myself out in the Mojave got a hotel and just kind of sat there and then movie release day comes it was supposed to come out at um 8:00 p.m. Pacific Standard time I remember it was like 12 hours left 10 hours left and then 8 minutes before the movie at 7:52 or I guess it was sent at 10:52 East Coast time I got a text message uh requesting a portion of my fat HBO check to contribute toward apparently years of therapy bills that this person had acrw after she says that she felt that I pressured her into giving consent years prior and I was confused not not only because of the timing but because this is someone that I hadn't seen in years or spoken to in years and I presume that I was on good terms with um so I didn't respond to the text message and then when I didn't respond about 7 Days Later this person made some Tik Tok videos and with the help of some friends launched an online campaign that got picked up by the Press pretty quickly so what did you feel like when you got that text well it's tough because on one hand I'm not opposed to restitution being part of a private accountability process for real abuse you know like if you've hurt someone to an extent that it took them out of work or something like I think they're entitled to some money but unfortunately as I later learned this person had legal counsel and this was an attempt to basically create evidence by extracting a confession from me to use as precedent for a civil lawsuit to the tune of a couple million dollars it's dark yeah how did you meet this person well I met them when I was 22 and like I told you I was living in an RV making this show called all gas no braks and I would travel between cities like every other day and so I would basically pick a new city and I got in this like pretty bad habit of what I would say is essentially treating Instagram like a like a dating app you know I would go to a new place I'd post my location I'd surf the DMS and I would look for like fans to meet up with it wasn't always girls it was just people to party with because I was also partying every night but a lot of times ended up being girls and stuff and so that's kind of how this situation was um I didn't have sex with this person um had a consensual encounter that they reached out to me about 2 weeks after saying hey I don't want you to take this the wrong way but looking back I felt a lot more pressure to agree than I realized in the moment I don't think this is any fault of yours I just think that you came on a bit too strong and I didn't want to let you down so I gave in and it was that language made me feel horrible mainly because if this person had told me hey I don't want to hook up I would have said yeah of course not why would I don't want to hook up with someone who doesn't want to hook up with me and I think that as Fame increased during that time I think I was just kind of oblivious to how people were seeing me especially those who had a digital relationship with me prior to me knowing them and I don't think that I handled that the right way well thank you for taking accountability but just to clarify you got consent yeah I was the initiatory party in an interaction with uh a fan who felt it she had to say yes because of I'm not sure why I don't know why but like I said this person also disclosed to me they had a history of childhood trauma and were actively being treated for PTSD and that they felt things move too fast for them given their situation and so I I told her I said hey if you want to reach out if you want to talk on the phone I'm always here for you I'm sorry to hear that let me know if we can talk further um about six months after that um I was at sturis bike week and uh I remember this day this was the hardest day I was just chilling and I got a text from my friend and it said hey man you're getting canceled right now and I was like what do you mean like did someone find an old tweet or something what are you talking about and I opened my phone and it was this Instagram story of me it was like the ugliest picture of me you can find it was like my face open it was like screenshotted um and it said I remember this specifically because I just couldn't believe it it said the ugly loser who hosts all gas no breaks is a piece of [ __ ] he knowingly abused my friend and got away with it if you follow him I'm going to message you and ask you why so this person who I don't know I didn't even know where who the accusation was coming from they text they emailed every production company that I was working with DMD hundreds if not thousands of people like just saying that like I was this piece of [ __ ] and I didn't even know who this person was so I was frantically calling and texting like every person that I'd seen intimately for the past year and being like hey are we on good terms is everything okay and then I figured out that the person was coming from Florida and I knew who it was and so thankfully I reached out to the original um person who I had the communication with and um I said hey like I think this might have been you this might have been your friend who posted this are we good like I'm I'm sorry I I apologized again I was like listen I feel bad that you feel this way I want to do anything that I can to help you again I apologize and um she said apology accepted I'm sorry my friend asked if I could if she could post on my behalf and I'm sorry I was going through a lot mentally and I saw your Fame increase and so I agreed to let her speak on my behalf and um we let we made amends in private you know I said okay I'm here for you let me know and she said apologies enough thank you for taking the time to speak with me and that was two years prior to this text message being sent to my phone 8 minutes before the movie so naturally I wanted to go on my platforms and talk about what was happening but but I also didn't want to mess up the roll out of the movie you know and uh so so the the pr firm was like we got this we'll handle this for you and that was I guess by way of a TMZ thing that said Andrew Callahan is devastated I'm not sure why they thought that that was going to make people be in my favor but yeah it was just a picture of Me on NBC that said Andrew Callahan devastated by allegations that that was their plan I guess to show that I was remorseful or something you know how much of this do you think lawyers kind of pushing this when money and fame are involved well I wish I could say the lawyer but I just can't um that was involved in this but I will tell you that I try to lean away from resentment and toward accountability completely what was my role in the situation how can I never make someone feel like that again what can I do what changes can I make to make sure that one I never treat someone this way and two to never be in that position again well again thank you for taking accountability and the main reason I talk about that is because it wasn't just that person there was multiple people who made videos reporting similar behavior and so it's obvious that that was a pattern of behavior of mine and so I made the apology video to announce that I was taking some time away because I just needed time away I mean my entire support system collapsed my friends at the time disappeared I was getting like obituaries texted to my phone that were like hey it's been nice knowing you it was great to see you grow good luck you know like I was dead and uh yeah got dropped from my agency no one gave me tough love no one called me to ask me if I was all right it was just only everyone disappeared in a week again thank you for taking accountability but I just hate how many cowers there are out there like people hit low points is when when you should help when you should stand with them if you know the their character yeah and it was just um it was hard to separate like the initial situation that I knew was more or less a setup and the possibly genuine other accounts and so it was like all right you know what at this point in my life I want to be on the right side of History I don't want to be the anti-canc culture mouthpiece I don't have the the mental strength to fight this especially because I was envisioning the HBO drop to be this like the world opens up to me moment and it was just the reverse but the uh it wasn't so much the the media reporting on it that hurt me it was just little stuff like a a childhood friend that you love seeing they unfollowed you on Instagram or just like seeing someone on the street that you grew up with and like waving at them and they don't they don't do anything back and and you're just like oh my God God man like this is my new life but what are you supposed to do thankfully I like somehow two weeks after I met an amazing partner who I'm still with to this day and I was able to conquer my two biggest fears which is monogamy and dogs I was terrified of dogs and terrified of having a girlfriend now I have a girlfriend who I love and two dogs so what were the what was the lowest point well right after this happened I entered like a recovery programs started with AA but then I found a more specialized program that dealt with the issues that I was dealing with say the hardest point was um logically deducing that the lives of my loved ones would be better off if I was gone you know what I mean and uh thinking that my my mom and my friends that their life would be better if I took myself out of the picture and um for one I just figured you know their friends canceled you know her son is a disgrace you my my family's going to think they raised me wrong and my friends I'm a social Pari now I'm a burden I'm better off dead and uh the hard part was you know I would read um stories and books written by parents who lost their kids to suicide and they reported feeling a lot of anger after the suicide so I tried to think of what's the way I can do it to get the least amount of anger on behalf of the people who would grieve cuz hanging someone will discover you so I figured drinking myself to death would be the way to do it and uh I wasn't able to yeah that was just a dark place you know I remember hating the people who loved me because I knew they would grieve and that made me mad that makes sense like I was ready to go I had no will to live but their grief was like I didn't want to cause that cuz I don't want to hurt them so I was like I hated the people who loved me cuz they were stopping me from taking my own life you know and uh it's weird to think that like when I was going through that if you walk by me in the street I look like a normal guy and so now when I walk around and I see people I think to myself you have no idea what that person is going through you know like it's crazy that so many people are suffering in like complete silence and you can't they don't wear it on them you know many of the people you talk to are probably that yeah many people you've interviewed before all this and after are probably going through some [ __ ] and I also thought if if I could write down what I just told you on a piece of paper and I was to to do it and then they found the note they would take it more seriously cuz they would know that I wasn't lying yeah but then you know if you do it it reduces the lifespan of your parents by 15 years so I looked at it like I was taking time away from them well thank you for the most part leaning towards accountability it's the right path to take uh what advice would you give to young men uh that look up to you on how they can be good men especially in regard to women if you have any kind of platform you know whether it doesn't have to be famous on Instagram it could be like if you're a pillar of your community in The Culinary world or whatever it is um just be hyper aware of that and remember that you are inheriting a power Dynamic that can create situations where there might be some pressure that you you don't even realize it's there but it's definitely there and you just have to be aware of that and two um when when meeting new partners having hookups and stuff like that just try to have a trauma informed conversation about their past really know the experiences and the backstory of what a new partner has gone through in that world of intimacy whatever they're comfortable uh uh you know to share obviously but you know I would advise against one night stands I would advise against hooking up with someone um that you're meeting for the first first time have those conversations prior because even though it might sound like a Vibe killer it's not and if you think that that conversation is a Vibe killer you probably shouldn't be in that situation in the first place especially now how hypersexualized things are and how common that type of violence is you need to be able to have those conversations and stop and say hey tell me a little bit about your past is there any triggers to make you uncomfortable let me know how I can be the best partner to you and I'm sure that college H people are not having those conversations but I'm sure that it would go a long way so especially when you're young college aged you don't have enough experience to be able to read a person without having that conversation cuz a lot of times you can see the trauma without explicitly talking about it but that takes experience and knowledge and seeing the world when you're young and you don't know you really don't know [ __ ] making things a bit more explicit is probably better yeah and also like as men were trained to believe that it's our duty to be the initiatory party in any type of like sexual encounter like oh like man chases woman you know what I mean like you know you have to be the one to make the move and or like she's playing hard to get if you know she's resistant to your first like compliment or something I think that that's not always how it has to be and that extra caution needs to be placed if you're taking the initiatory role in an interaction especially if someone has a traumatic background they might agree to do something with you because they're scared and you might not realize that's what's going on but because you don't you don't see yourself as a predatory person you don't see yourself as someone who would ever consciously make someone uncomfortable or cross a boundary but people have histories that you might not understand and for me as someone who doesn't have much honestly like childhood trauma or anything like that it's been an interesting year for me working in therapy and elsewhere understanding how that affects the mind and also I understand that hurt people hurt people and that someone with a traumatic background isn't going to have sympathy for applying that traumatic pain to someone else even if that person isn't the cause of of what put them in that spot

Channel: Lex Clips

Views: 176,256

Keywords: ai, ai clips, ai podcast, ai podcast clips, andrew callaghan, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence podcast, computer science, consciousness, deep learning, einstein, elon musk, engineering, friedman, joe rogan, lex ai, lex clips, lex fridman, lex fridman podcast, lex friedman, lex mit, lex podcast, machine learning, math, math podcast, mathematics, mit ai, philosophy, physics, physics podcast, science, tech, tech podcast, technology, turing

Id: 2l1eHxnnF2E

Length: 17min 22sec (1042 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024