Adam Sandler Won't Stop Touching the Leg of 'The Crown' Actress Claire Foy
You would think that as powerful and creepy men have fallen over the course of the past year—experiencing retribution, if not legally, at least in reputation and career—that dudes would kind of sit up and realize that groping women and/or otherwise not waiting for an invitation to insert themselves into a woman’s personal space isn’t a good idea. In recent weeks in particular, there’s been a lot of fallout around former producer Harvey Weinstein as dozens of women have accused him of sexual assault and harassment. There’s also been hundreds of women coming out against director James Toback with similar allegations.
Let’s revisit the general gist of it all, in case it wasn’t clear: Don’t touch us without our consent.
Apparently Adam Sandler hasn’t gotten the message. On a Friday appearance on the U.K.’s Graham Norton Show, he kept nonchalantly—even obliviously—putting his hand on the thigh of The Crown star Claire Foy. She looks incredibly uncomfortable as the audience laughed (we’d like to think in sympathy with her plight) and removes his hand not once, but twice, putting it firmly back on his own leg.
Watch the cringe-y video below:
https://twitter.com/michellelmarsh/status/924085907631804416
The two other actresses on the show sitting near Sandler, Emma Thompson and Cara Delevingne—who both came for Weinstein hard as allegations broke out—look at him with something close to disdain. Sandler later went on to touch Thompson’s leg, too.
We all know Sandler’s sense of humor isn’t exactly high-brow: he’s known for physical comedy and early ’90s “bro” humor that veers towards immaturity. But the 51-year-old treating a talented, 33-year-old actress as a casual landing pad for his hand is, at the very least, in incredibly poor taste, especially given the near-constant headlines surrounding sexual harassment and assault in the past weeks. Would Sandler, who is married to a woman, have done the same with male colleagues?
Many women are feeling especially sensitive and vulnerable about matters like this—for some, each new headline is a reminder of their own experiences—and tone-deaf actions like this are incredibly inappropriate.
A spokesperson for the actor said on Sunday that the resulting backlash was “blown out of proportion”—but that’s a response that polices the reaction of women are affected by what they saw. And it’s not OK for the male actor (literally, in this case) to dictate what their response should be.
Twitter wasn’t happy, either, remarking that Foy looked distressed:
On her end, Foy apparently brushed off the brush: a spokeswoman for her repeatedly told the Daily Mail, “We don’t believe anything was intended by Adam’s gesture and it has caused no offense to Claire.”
We’re glad she’s OK, but still, it’s an out-of-touch (no pun intended) gesture from Sandler—and the backlash is an indication that more and more people are less willing to put up with moves like that. Invading a woman’s personal space might have been the punchline of jokes 50, even 30 and 10 years ago, but now, in 2017, times have changed—and it’s time that men, even those who have made a career out of juvenile humor, grow up.
Related Stories:
–More Than 200 Women Have Accused This Hollywood Director of Sexual Harassment
–Selma Blair Says James Toback Once Made Her Read a Monologue While Naked
–Amber Tamblyn Writes Powerful Open Letter to Actor James Woods