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Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock posts online confessional of sexual misconduct

Morgan Spurlock
Morgan Spurlock attends the Turner Upfront 2017 in New York City on May 17, 2017.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

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Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker best known for his 2004 documentary Super Size Me, acknowledged on Wednesday examples of sexual misconduct in his past in an online confessional titled "I am Part of the Problem." Amid a flurry of accusations of sexual harassment and abuse that have taken down numerous high-profile men in recent months, Spurlock linked from his Twitter account to a nearly 1,000-word post, admitting: "I don't sit by and wonder 'who will be next?' I wonder, 'when will they come for me?'"

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Spurlock recently sold the sequel to the Oscar-nominated Super Size Me — about the ill effects of a fast-food diet. He has been involved in dozens of other films and television projects.

He said that he had built a reputation as a documentarian seeking the truth and that "I can't blindly act as though I didn't somehow play a part in this, and if I'm going truly represent myself as someone who has built a career on finding the truth, then it's time for me to be truthful as well."

Spurlock, 47, details an encounter he had in college that he described as "a one-night stand" that she later viewed as rape.

He said he and the girl had gotten drunk and taken off their clothes. "She said she didn't want to have sex, so we laid together, and talked, and kissed, and laughed, and then we started having sex." The woman started to cry, Spurlock says, "I tried to comfort her. To make her feel better. I thought I was doing ok, I believed she was feeling better. She believed she was raped."

The filmmaker also acknowledged a repeated history of infidelity and the verbal sexual harassment of a former female assistant that occurred eight years ago. When "she decided to quit, she came to me and said if I didn't pay her a settlement, she would tell everyone."

"I paid for peace of mind. I paid for her silence and cooperation," he wrote. "Most of all, I paid so I could remain who I was."

The detailed confessional puts Spurlock in the spotlight along with numerous men from Hollywood, Congress, corporate America and the news media — including NPR — that have been caught in an avalanche of accusations triggered by those leveled against film producer Harvey Weinstein starting in October. Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.