HATE WATCH | JANUARY 29, 2023

Game Show Network Employs a Rape Apologist as Their Host?

Imagine if the beloved and longtime host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, had testified in a civil court praising his buddy who was accused of rape. Then imagine this: Alex continues to pal around with and support this person after he is unanimously found liable for rape, and ordered to pay his victim $10 million.

Envisioning the truly bizarre, suppose Alex not only hung out with a rapist, but had, as another close buddy, someone dismissed with haste from a major television network for repeated sexual abuse of women.

Would that change your perception of Alex? Would you be able to focus on the game, the correct answers, if you knew that Alex was so profoundly unethical?

OK, you can stop imagining. Thankfully that never happened with Alex, who was a decent family man without a hint of scandal attached to his character.

Can you imagine Alex doing 1/20th of this and continuing to host Jeopardy?

Let’s instead now focus on reality: how could Game Show Network employ Leah Remini as a host when she has done the following:

Testified under oath that Paul Haggis was “the real victim” in an action against Haggis for rape. He was later found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict. The victim was awarded $10 million. Yet Remini continues to support Haggis. How is this possible in the age of #MeToo?
Remini supports—and literally embraces—disgraced former TV executive Les Moonves, another inveterate sexual predator. Moonves was forced to step down from CBS because of his repeated sexual abuse of women. He and CBS were ordered to pay $30.5 million for attempting to cover it all up.

Can you imagine Alex doing 1/20th of this and continuing to host Jeopardy?

What about in 2023?

I can’t either.

Leah Remini and Les Moonves at her birthday party, June 12, 2021

As the saying goes “birds of a feather flock together.” Remini obviously agrees with the actions of these men or feels that “it’s not a big deal” to sexually abuse women, because if she felt otherwise, she would cease associating with them. That’s what ethical people do. And they certainly don’t post pictures on Instagram of them hugging sexual predators at their own birthday parties at their homes.

In this time, when real women are sexually victimized routinely in the workplace, Game Show Network can surely find a better host than an apologist for sexual violence.

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Roger Harrison

Roger operates professionally as a jazz piano player, singer, voice-over artist and bandleader. He is passionate about the importance of religious freedom and the dangers of religious bigotry.

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