“I was an arrogant little f--- when I was in my 20s,” says Harry Knowles today, grinning. “Like nobody’s bigger than me.” You can see a glimpse of Knowles at his most callow and hateable in a 1998 TV clip from Inside Edition. “When Lethal Weapon 4 was filming the gas station blowing up in L.A.,” he boasts, “I had, like, 76 people on set covering that. That’s, like, double what CNN had to cover O.J.”
Wesley MannThe Alamo Drafthouse is severing all ties with Harry Knowles in the wake sexual assault allegations against the Ain’t It Cool News founder.
Drafthouse CEO Tim League, already reeling from the Devin Faraci scandal, released a statement on Monday night which said the company had “severed all ties with Harry Knowles and he is no longer affiliated with the company in any capacity.”
League added that the company was “striving to better respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment, and will take actions so those who work at the theater or attend as a guest are not made to feel unsafe.”
Knowles, who along with League co-founded the wildly popular Fantastic Fest genre film event, was accused over the weekend of sexual assault by a former Drafthouse employee Jasmine Baker. “Harry Knowles groped me, opportunistically, on more than one occasion,” Baker told Indiewire. “I cannot just stay silent. I am not interested in remaining silent.”
After the allegations came to light, a number of veteran Ain’t It Cool News contributors including Eric Vespe said they were leaving the company.
For League, the Knowles controversy comes a week after Drafthouse came under huge public criticism for quietly rehiring former Birth.Movies.Death editor Faraci, who left the company last year after allegations of assaulting a woman several years ago. League had rehired Faraci in a copywriting capacity in order to give the blogger a “second chance” but the revelation led to a backlash and a social media-led boycott.
Faraci stepped away from Drafthouse for the second time and League apologized.
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Read League’s full letter below:
I’ve been reflecting on twenty years of decisions as a business owner. In the early days, Karrie and I conferred on all tough decisions, and we always tried to do the right thing. To this day, the core value of the company is just that, the simple principle to always “do the right thing.” Recent perspective has made it clear that we didn’t always do the right thing, despite what we thought were good intentions. To the women we have let down, Karrie and I both sincerely apologize.
We’re now a big company with over 4,500 employees. We have over a million guests come through our doors every month. Now we have a great HR team and are a vastly better company than we were in the mom and pop days.
I’m currently writing this update from a hotel room in Kansas City. As many of you know, I decided to skip Fantastic Fest this year. I feel that the most important thing I can do right now is to travel to all of our theaters, talk with our staff and listen. I’ve hosted 12 sessions so far and there are many more scheduled for the next three weeks all over the country. As much as I’d like to be at the event, I need to be with our staff and lead a positive path forward for the company.
On the festival front, in light of recent events and feedback we have gotten over the last few days, we have taken some first steps on the path to listening and ensuring that we create a safe, inclusive environment for our staff at both the theater and the festival as well as the community at large. I’ll be sharing more about this in the days and weeks to come.
Moving forward, we have severed all ties with Harry Knowles and he is no longer affiliated with the company in any capacity. We are striving to better respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment, and will take actions so those who work at the theater or attend as a guest are not made to feel unsafe.
The festival is actively working on building out a new Board of Directors whose focus will be to further enhance and refine the experience of the festival; nurture and provide more opportunities for young genre filmmakers; and provide the best, most open and inclusive environment for this unique film community. This board will be run by the festival’s Executive Director, Kristen Bell, and should be finalized and announced shortly.
The festival team has spent the last five days talking to badgeholders and gathering feedback on ways the festival can be better. We’ve made real-time changes to the festival this year and will also be sending out a post-event survey to all badgeholders to collect further feedback on how we should improve and grow. We greatly appreciate all the feedback we have received so far, both positive and negative, as it continues to give us a wider, better perspective on the future of the festival.
At the festival and at the theater, we are committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all of our staff and guests, and I am committed to the work ahead to ensure that goal.
