(Trigger Warning for sexual assault and r*pe, Ansel Elgort, hateful comments, gaslighting, grooming)
Believe survivors. The alternative is too dangerous. I would rather support a potentially false claim than protect a potential r*pist. Why? Because if we continue to shame, discredit, and attack people who come forward we are showing every single survivor what would happen to them if they tried to tell their story. And yet people still have the audacity to ask, “Why didn’t you come forward earlier?”
When the victim is underage and the accused is older, an unhealthy dynamic exists. And when it’s a celebrity, who has fame and resources on top of this power? It’s even worse.
Instead of only having the people who jump in to say, “There’s no evidence! Why should I believe this?”, there’s also the fans. The following are comments on the recent allegations against Ansel Elgort:
To recap, someone came forward with an incredibly painful, traumatizing account of their experience (that it took years to find the strength and courage to recount) and those are some of the responses?
And keep in mind this is before he even denied it. People attacked her the moment she spoke up.
I now need an entire separate area to discuss his “apology”, because frankly I get enraged and disgusted just thinking about it.
He makes it about himself and his feelings in the first line by saying he’s the one that is “distressed” by this.
The main paragraph makes sure to point out that he can’t claim to understand her feelings, but he sure makes an effort to imply that he does, and that whatever her view is, it didn’t even happen.
Like: “Hey I know she thinks I r*ped her but I simply don’t perceive it that way so...”
Furthermore, he makes it very clear that: They were in NEW YORK when they entered a CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP where THE LEGAL AGE OF CONSENT IS 17. He was EXACTLY 20 YEARS OLD which was 3 YEARS OLDER THAN SHE WAS.
He’s saving his own ass with these remarks by making it clear that what happened was legal. Because obviously the law is a perfect example of what is right.
(I feel like it’s worth noting that the girl in question never said anything different about their ages or the time and place of the events)
(Also worth noting even if you’re in a consensual relationship, that does not mean the sex is consensual)
The more concerning matter however, is that he doesn’t specifically mention the allegations once in the entire post. He doesn’t even mention what he’s being accused of. He basically says, “So I’ve been seeing people saying things about me. I’m not gonna say what they are at all, I’m just gonna say that they didn’t happen”.
This is another tactic to avoid any semblance of guilt by not even acknowledging that you’ve been accused. The way he glosses over the entire situation at hand is appalling.
The part of this “apology” that really makes my blood boil however, the icing on this disgusting cake, is him painting her as a jilted ex who is making this up as payback for a bad breakup from a “brief” relationship.
He tries to flip it around by saying that he was the one that didn’t handle the breakup well, that he regrets the way he acted afterwards, the he was the one who stopped responding to her so that we fill in blanks ourselves. He’s not saying “she’s making this up because she’s upset that I ghosted her” but he might as well be.
He gaslit her when she accused him of putting her through a traumatizing experience that she will never ever forget, to TEN MILLION FOLLOWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. People were either already attacking her, or were just waiting for an excuse to, and he gave them the green light.
He uses words like “immature”, “cruel“, and “unacceptable” to describe his past behaviour to show that he feels “disgusted” and “deeply ashamed”. These words are what gets the reader to believe he’s matured and that he understands what he did was wrong. He says he wants “to work to grow in empathy” but literally one paragraph before that he publicly calls his accuser a flat-out liar. To TEN MILLION FOLLOWERS. I don’t believe for one second that he wasn’t just trying to reel in sympathy for himself, to pull everyone onto his side and off of hers.
He makes sure to convey that he’s remorseful, but makes it clear that it is not remorse for what she is saying happened. He’s trying to be forgiven and have us move on without even acknowledgIng or confrontIng anything: “I’m sorry for what I did, but it also never happened. I apologize, please forgive me for something I definitely would never have done.”
To summarize, the dangers of defending a potential predator and subsequently discrediting the victim and silencing future survivors far outweigh the “dangers” of supporting a false claim.
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