Sony Hack: Michael Lynton Clarifies Email Remark About Sexual Assault

After a hacked email was posted online on Thursday, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton clarified a brief remark about sexual assault made in a September message to co-chairman Amy Pascal.

According to a screenshot of a Sept. 19 email posted by The Daily Dot, Lynton sent a message to Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal in response to a link about President Obama speaking about campus sexual assault. Lynton also made apparent reference to NFL concussions (Sony is currently in production on a film dealing with that subject matter.)

Lynton’s email to Pascal read: “this has nothing to do with the brain injury stuff. and obama should keep his nose out of it. sexual assault is directly related to alcohol intake and actually has not increased since we were in college. Remember ‘Take back the night?'”

In response to the published email, the executive issued a statement on Thursday clarifying the message. 

“My comment was in no way meant to suggest that sexual assault isn’t a profound and serious issue that has to be dealt with,” Lynton said in a comment to The Daily Dot.

More than 12,000 messages from 2008 to 2014 from Lynton’s email inbox were hacked as part of the cyberattack by a group that called itself the Guardians of Peace. The hack has been linked to the North Korean regime.