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In a lot of ways Oprah Winfrey’s decision to distance herself from the documentary featuring women who accused music industry mogul Russell Simmons of rape and sexual assault, has gotten more attention than the allegations the women have made against Simmons.
And that’s unfortunate, to say the least.
Recently, Oprah spoke to her friend and fellow journalist Gayle King on “CBS This Morning,” about her decision to step down as an executive producer from the film titled “On the Record.”
She told King:
“I have lived Me Too since I was 9-years-old. Was raped at 9, sexually assaulted from 9-14 and then raped again at 14. Nothing is harder than standing up for yourself at 14 and not being believed and I was not believed by my own family. So, I stand in support of these women. I believe them. It was a hard decision because I knew that Russell Simmons had started publicly pressuring me and me pulling out of the documentary was going to look like I was being pressured…Before the public pressure had started, I had gone to the film makers and I had said to them, ‘Houston, I think we have a problem here.’ Because new information had come forward. The very first time this was announced. I said, ‘I think we need to pull out of Sundance and if we can’t pull out of Sundance, I’m going have to take my name off. I don’t want to have to take my name off because it’s going to be a big hullabaloo. Pull out of Sundance because I don’t care about awards. I just care about getting it right and think there are some inconsistencies in the stories that we need to look at…As an executive producer, I also was in a position where I thought some things were not right. I wanted the context of the story to be broadened. I wanted more women brought into the story. I thought Michelle Miller’s story last week, with three of the women, one of the women had just been added, Alexia Norton Strong, I think is her name. [Her real name is Alexia Norton Jones] I had asked that more women be added. When you see the documentary, which I do hope people see the documentary, I felt that story needed to be broadened. One of the things I said to the producers is, ‘I don’t think that deserves to be just a soundbite.’ And I can honestly say that I learned more about Alexia Norton Strong in Michelle Miller’s story than I did in the doc. So I was asking for changes. People were saying, ‘What’s the timeline?’ Until the thing is on the screen, you have the right to change your mind and make changes.”
Alexia Norton Jones, who accused Simmons of raping her on their first date in 1991, shared her thoughts regarding Oprah’s comments in a recent interview with Variety. And to sum it up, she wasn’t entirely pleased.
“I’m online the other day, and I see a clip on my Twitter account. I see Oprah Winfrey speaking to Gayle King about an interview I’d done with Michelle Miller, which was really terrific.
And so, here’s Oprah Winfrey who is in many ways the second most powerful black woman in America after Michelle Obama. She’s talking about the documentary and she’s giving it shade. And this is after she’s already stepped away from the documentary.
Then here it is, casually. I have this other name [Alexia Norton Strong] on TV, spoken by Oprah Winfrey. What was so painful about it is that, what sexual violence is, it is about erasing you. It is about saying you don’t matter. Right in that moment, Oprah is sharing her own story, about what happened to her. She then inserts her pain into our experience about why she’s stepping away. And at the same time, I don’t have a name.
She should know better. All respect to Gayle King, who had also introduced that segment with Michelle Miller days earlier. Everybody’s got an earpiece. Somebody could have corrected her. It reminds me of when you’re trying to seek help for these things, you’re silenced again. It’s not like I’m important to Oprah or Gayle, but Oprah was the executive producer of the project. This is what bothered me. She didn’t step into the project at the end.
The whole thing, it’s been very destabilizing. You don’t want to hear your name on a national news story in the morning said incorrectly, because your name is who you are.
I was late to be interviewed for the Russell Simmons documentary. Nobody could find me. When I got in front of the camera, Amy Ziering didn’t really know anything about me because it happened so last minute. I’ve come in at the very end of the film. It’s like they had to fit me into a film that has already been made.
After I finished shooting, as we sat down to lunch, I turned to Amy and said, “I’m biracial, and it breaks my heart. White people don’t need to care about black people.”
And Amy said, ‘No Alexia, that’s not true. We are all in this together.’
I was really moved by that. I’ve said this for a long time, I had no protectors. And I have to give props to these filmmakers because they made an extraordinary film and a historic film. It’s not an attack on Russell. It tells a story of how black women love black men and how we’ve always protected them and how our role has been to be the nurturer. And how when a black man is shot and he’s unarmed, pieces of us die. We are broken by that.
…
When I learned that Oprah had pulled out of the documentary, I don’t even know what kind of words to put on that. I was in shock. It wasn’t that I wasn’t believed. I felt like she built her brand on her story of being abused. And for two decades, people came on her talk show and told their stories of abuse.
When she walked away from us as women of color, it was painful because she was abandoning us. I had always felt a bond with Oprah. This has always been the most confusing, isolating, painful part of this whole documentary. A few weeks ago, I’m getting messages, “Oprah pulled out.” And I’m like, “What happened?” After Oprah pulled out, everybody’s pulled away from everybody. So now my only communication is with the filmmakers. By the way, the people who have been steadfast and remarkable during this whole process are Time’s Up, the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund and Ann Walker Marchant, a publicist who specializes in crisis communications.
When I had been speaking to one of the producers, I thought I was going to Sundance. That’s what I’d been told all along. But after Oprah and Apple dropped out, what was presented to me was they only had the resources to send the principals. I wanted to come to Sundance and see my story retold. I’m guessing because these are independent filmmakers, where are the resources going to be?
So now I’m left alone. I’m left alone in my home with a support system of a couple people on Twitter who have found me and have been astonishingly kind and supportive. But it is very isolating. When you are assaulted, when violence has happened to you and you are sexually violated and raped, whether you’re in the film for two hours or 25 seconds, you are not less raped than anybody else. That’s not how rape works.
I do feel like Oprah hurt us. And she’s too smart a woman not to have known. I just don’t understand where her loyalties were to begin with. She shouldn’t have ever signed up on the project if she couldn’t get to the finish line.”
You can read Alexia Norton Jones’ full comments, here.
