I’m sorry I snaked a hand up your skirt – but I was probably on medication at the time.
I’d like to apologise for making women feel uncomfortable over the years – I know, as a famous, omnipotent man, I should have known better.
Did my sexts cause you immense mental agony? I deeply regret it; I believe I was halfway to discovering my latent homosexuality (which I sincerely think we should talk about instead of the way I harassed you.)
Do any of these sound even vaguely familiar to you? That’s because they are – almost literally – paraphrases of apologies handed out by alleged sexual predators to their victims on social media.
If you read Utsav Chakraborty’s lengthy Twitter apology thread yesterday and kept looking for the “apology” in between updates on his health, then you weren’t the only one.
We can keep expecting real apologies, but the truth is, for at least a year since #MeToo started, all we’ve ever got are apologies made in the passive voice by men who make sure to mention “the number of years I’ve spent in this industry” and draft excuses.
Here are a few choice examples: