James Spader, Playboy interview, on boundaries and being hit on...
“I’ve been very successful keeping a private face on things, even out in public. If you’re recognizable and you want to draw people to you in public, you can do that. I don’t. If people put their lives in the public eye a lot, people feel as if they’ve gotten to know them through the media. I try not to open the door to my private life in a public way. I appreciate people’s appreciation, but I maintain clear boundaries…
I think you can fuck things up, because anticipation and unrequited feelings are very powerful.“
Here’s the thing. I’ve been down this road before recently, and I’m about to lose some friends over standing up for boundaries–if you know where this is going, just unfollow now and cut the crap. There have been pictures circulating recently with James Spader (drunk) with a fan. Bragging about him kissing her (chastely, a few times) at the Vanguard during a show, while his partner Leslie is off inside. The main story on how it went down: she went to the BUILD interview the day before, got pics with him outside–a ”once in a lifetime chance” as fans keep saying. Then she shows up at the Village Vanguard within a day’s time, which is his favorite venue and one he frequents, and asked for pictures…again. Noticed that he was tipsy and not only in disarray, but uninhibited to boot, and when he kissed her, pressed for him to do it again. Sounds like a wonderful evening to tell all your friends about, no? Except that’s not really the James Spader we all know and love. He’s more pulled together and in control, doesn’t like touching, our little OCD angel who admits to needing rigid boundaries. Hmm.
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If you read nothing else of this long post, please read this:
PLEASE be more careful with what you write in your tirade about CONSENT. It is so important that everyone understands what it is. If you are saying you can’t consent by saying yes when you are in complete control of your actions and speech and memory but have alcohol or low class drugs in your system then you are suggesting millions of late night liaisons of actually being non-consensual and in fact assault. If you are saying you can’t consent because you have OCD then you need to stop immediately because you do not understand the condition. Do you actually mean that? Because you are devaluing the hard work of everyone who is actively trying to have real important debates about consent, what it actually means for all parties and how best to teach it. And that is really dangerous. What you are saying is dangerous. And you need to stop.
You also need to cease and desist your defamation of this fan. Immediately, because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters in these circumstances is facts so let’s just focus on those - the actual facts, not the conjecture mixed with partial fact from above. 2 of 3 people who were ACTUALLY there agree with the facts below, one of whom is impartial and from what I’ve read the 3rd agrees with the actual facts - just spins it in a very deceiving way:
1) When asked about having a photo after the show, he not only consented, he CHOSE to do it straightaway and in another room.
2) When Leslie ‘objected’ she wasn’t objecting to the photo, she was just reminding JS that she asked for it for after the show. The fan had to go back to her seat to get the camera because she didn’t expect it. All she did was ask if it would be ok. Let me repeat that - SHE ASKED. The definition of CONSENT is to ask is it not? My comments above go into greater detail about the dangers of claiming that saying yes when you are in control of your faculties but have imbibed alcohol is somehow not consent.
3) He stood for lots of photos, smiling and happy in all of them. You can see him directing the camera and instigating more. His arm is around her, not the other way around. Whatever else you want to say about this - he is happy, he’s being friendly, he, at no point, tries to stop it but actually prolongs it.
4) He gave her a European kiss (e.g. two cheeks). She jokingly said that in her country, it’s 3 and then he invited her to give him a kiss. Which she did. Chastely. On the cheek. That’s what she’s allegedly ‘bragged’ about. Not that she kissed him, snogged him or anything else. That HE ASKED HER to kiss him on the cheek.
5) They came back to the main room and everyone continued to have a great night. Everyone. JS, Leslie - everyone there. He hung around after talking to the jazz singer - he was in no rush to leave this supposedly horrific situation he had been put in.
Everything else you say is conjecture and supposition.
For example, any comments about her motives, plans to manipulate and take advantage - NOT FACT. Unless you have developed some kind of mind reading and time travelling device - which have you? Cos if so that’s awesome!! If not, what you have written concerning this is LIES and DEFAMATION. You have no knowledge what was in her head.
Accusations of her bragging - was she? Or was she, like most fans overwhelmed and excited to share the experience. I have met the fan a couple of times - she does not come across as the kind of person to brag. Either in person or online. Whatever the opposite of a person who brags or forces themselves onto people - that’s her.
Let’s talk about OCD as you are such an expert in that apparently. I suppose he went home and washed vigorously, traumatised by what he’d CHOSEN to do. But you don’t know that. You are speculating about something you at most only know about from your own personal experience (if that). Maybe he went home and thought that was fun. How nice to chill out and not worry about my OCD for a few hours. You don’t know what he thought, or how his OCD was affecting him or not at that moment.
You don’t know him. Stop telling people how he must have felt about an experience that he was smiling throughout. Every time you or someone posts about how he wasn’t in control, that he was taken advantage of, that he was unhappy - you are speaking for him with no knowledge of what he thinks or feels. You have no right to do that. Legally or otherwise.
And stop saying Leslie was upset - I’ve seen zero proof of this.
Here’s what I know as absolute fact…
You have started a personal vendetta on a fan across multiple social media platforms. At a minimum, you have probably ruined her holiday and that of her travelling companion but god knows what other damage you have done with what some have described as cyberbullying behaviour. On ZERO evidence or provocation. PS: Look up cyberbullying - it should be in the legal textbooks of your country.
And you have done this whilst somehow trying to set yourself up as some bastion of goodness. The whole ‘I’ve done wrong in the past, but now I’m wise and better than everyone else blah blah fishcakes’. What you have done is actually a truly vile and horrible thing to do. PLEASE STOP AND THINK ABOUT THAT.
Thanks to you and others she is being hounded on social media for having a photo taken with a celebrity. At the end of the day - that is ALL she has done. She hasn’t attacked anyone, she hasn’t stolen from anyone, she hasn’t deliberately tried to hurt anyone. She has been called a whore and homewrecker on zero evidence and accused of grabbing him and trying to have some kind of romantic interaction with him. All this on ZERO evidence and also in completed contrast to at least two people’s account of what happened THAT WERE THERE. You did this. Does this seem a nice thing to do?
We can only judge people on their actions. On the one hand, we have a fan who went up to a person and asked for a photo with them. Now maybe he doesn’t like that normally - but for whatever reason that night he did. He encouraged it, he actively participated in it. HE DID IT. That is her crime.
What have you done? Well you and others have instigated a hatchet job on someone you DO NOT KNOW and completely defamed her with no regard for her, her life or the people around her.
I know of the two I think should be blogged about and judged and plastered all over social media as a hateful figure. But I’m not that kind of person. I’m fortunate to not know anyone in my life who is THAT kind of person. I deeply regret finding the reality they exist by you coming along and ruining my last 24 hours seeing the damage YOU and your friends have done. Or that I have felt compelled to sign up to tumbler to try to make you understand that what you are doing is wrong.
I have not called you names. I have not lied about you. I have not linked this on every social media platform going. I am talking to you and only you. To ask you to stop acting in a horrific and horrible manner. Begging you actually. Because I am not some faceless person behind a keyboard and neither is the person you are attacking or the others affected by the campaign you are running against a single fan. Because make no mistake - you can try this up about being a general thing about fandom but you are accusing one fan, talking about one fan and inviting others to slander and criticise one fan. That’s a campaign and its one based on zero evidence.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am a lifelong friend of the girl that was with the fan you are attacking. My friend is not a James Spader fan, although she quite enjoys Blacklist, but more importantly she is an utterly wonderful, kind and truthful human being who seeks out other nice, kind and truthful friends - like the fan she was with. And this friend of mine has been utterly disgusted to read the comments and lies being written about that night. She doesn’t use social media at all and she has been texting me over the last 24 hours telling me that she doesn’t understand this at all. She doesn’t understand how people could lie or subvert truth to attack a kind and lovely friend of hers. And more importantly, she doesn’t get why they are doing this at all. And I don’t understand it either - even if there was stalking, even if lines were crossed - and according to my very sensible, unstarstruck friend, they really weren’t - why are you attacking this fan in the way you have? Is that really your job, your responsibility? Because you belittle JS when you suggest he can’t deal with this himself. And let me tell you, whilst your attacks may upset her, they completely diminish you. They show you up as having no compassion and no soul whatsoever.
None of us are perfect and we all should work to be better people. I suggest looking at what you have done over the last 24 hours and ask yourself - what good have I actually done? And has it any way balanced the harm that I have done? As an outsider I can tell you that it seems to me that the answer to the first question is … not a lot… and the second is … not at all.
Quick note to many posting here - a lot of what has been written here about this fan has either been twisted or been kids or conjecture. Please do not assume the original post is a factual unbiased account. It is nothing short of a character assassination and continuing to spread these rumours and inaccuracies is cruel. Please stop doing it. Thank you.
New to Tumblr so apologies for not doing this right. You forget to mention that whilst I have seen your friend's account, I have read the one from the fan you are defaming and, more importantly have spoken directly to the third attendee (who was there for the jazz and not JS). I know this non fan extremely well, she has no reason to lie and more importantly, does not tell lies cos she's so bad at it. Seriously, last time she told a lie, it upset her so much she cried for the first time in years for a whole day and promptly 'fessed up.
I have read your response bonocusack and you have ignored everything I said in my long post. I am not arguing with you about what is stalking or respectful, I spoke to you about cyberbullying and character assassination. About actively trying to ruin someone's life by making a public example of them. I have since discovered this is based on information that you received from someone who you have since admitted fits your definition of 'stalker', thus bringing its authenticity into question. I spoke to you about defamation and the damage you have tried to inflict on a fellow fan.
You talk about agreed facts but then, as an example, you used the evocative term 'wrangled a table' which is not how your friend originally described it. As you know she described how the fan asked for the table closest to JS and he didn't end up sitting there anyway which even your friend admitted to bring bummed about. On the one hand, you know how to manipulate readers with word choice so well done. On the other hand, you have disguised a prolonged and multi-pronged attack on a fan as a holier-than-thou crusade bout stalking and fan respect. It is despicable behaviour but you must know that which is why you didn't reply to any of these points when I made them earlier.
Finally I suggested that regardless of anyone's views of stalking - all this fan has done at the end of the day is have her photo taken. What you have spent the last 24 hours doing is cruel and vicious and I am blown away by your lack of shame.
The simple fact is you should take down this blog post and replace it with a retraction and apology. You have no right to screw up someone's life based on YOUR ASSUMPTION that someone you don't actually know didn't want to be involved in a photo with someone else that you have also never met (despite photographic evidence to the contrary).
If you maintain that this has nothing to do with attacking the fan in question, then I will eagerly await tomorrow's tumblr and Twitter blogs and links where you eviscerate your friend over her stalking tendencies.