John Barrowman’s damage control amid sexual misconduct scandal is not going well

Met him a few times over the years.

Always fake and incredibly smarmy.

His sister is nice, though.

It was pretty well known tat in an episode of TORCHWOOD that featured Sandy Duncan's glass eye, Barrowman popped it in his butthole and presented hole on set.

*well known that

What's the big deal? Bosses in England still pat the women employees on the ass and it's accepted

I'm not defending his behavior, but I think it's important to consider the context/timing. This was years and years ago. Torchwood ended a decade ago. Has the behavior continued? Are there fresh complaints? Or is this just a purge of anyone who ever did anything wrong?

This isn't sexual misconduct. That's like saying streaking is indecent exposure.

[...]

When did the UK become such prudes about nudity? They streak whenever they get the chance...and now suddenly a penis is shocking?

[...]

Putting your penis on someone's shoulder... c'mon now.

He regularly posts silly pix with fans touching his ass and other poses. There for awhile he would post videos of himself, in various hotel hallways, crawling on the floor with his bare ass hanging out of his pants. He seems to have a bawdy and prankster sense of humor, but I’m not surprised he’s getting this backlash because he doesn’t have boundaries.

[quote] When did the UK become such prudes about nudity?

Since forever. They have always been sexually repressed.

The BBC even shows full frontal nudity from time to time...and a penis is a problem now?

Per the original Guardian report on Clarke and Barrowman, which broke the story: "Barrowman, who played the character of Capt Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and its spin-off show Torchwood, is accused of exposing himself repeatedly on both sets, although numerous witnesses described the incidents as inappropriate pranks rather than anything amounting to sexually predatory behaviour."

If even the people involved didn't consider it predatory behavior (unlike Clarke), why are they whining about it a decade later? What are they hoping to accomplish, knowing how it would be lumped in with actual predators in today's atmosphere?

My guess is because they can't only go after Noel Clark without it looking bad.

Also from the Guardian article at r14:

Several sources told the Guardian that Barrowman did indeed repeatedly expose himself on set, although they stressed the context was different to the sexually predatory behaviour Clarke is accused of. Barrowman is gay, and his actions were described as misjudged “larking about” and “joking”.

However, some Doctor Who crew members described an overly relaxed, at times unprofessional culture on set in the early seasons of the show. “David [Tennant, who joined the show in season 2] behaved impeccably,” said Jenna, “and to a certain extent, I think that helped rein things in.”

Jenna said she frequently witnessed Barrowman expose himself on set. “He would get his genitals out on a regular basis … he’d just sort of have his balls hanging out his trousers or something, which he just thought was really funny,” she said. On one occasion, Jenna said that she witnessed Barrowman “slapping” his penis on the windscreen of one of the driver’s cars, “thinking it was really funny”.

Monica had similar recollections. “Sometimes he’d call me into his dressing room, and I would knock on the door and he’d say, ‘Oh, look at this’, and he’d just have his willy out, standing in the doorway,” she said. “It was kind of accepted that it was his thing,” she said.

Although she did not appreciate his behaviour, or find it particularly funny, Monica stressed she did not feel unsafe. “It just felt really uncomfortable,” she said.

Barrowman’s behaviour was even referenced in a lighthearted tribute song, called The Ballad of Russell and Julie and filmed to commemorate the end of Tennant’s tenure as the Doctor in 2008. The video is understood to have been filmed after cast and crew discovered Barrowman had been reprimanded for exposing himself on the set of Torchwood.

The tribute video was filmed for Doctor Who executive producers Julie Gardner and Russell T Davies. “Can’t block out,” sang Tennant, “please lock out, images of Johnny B getting his cock out.” The camera cuts to Barrowman, delivering a wink to the camera.

Gardner confirmed that she received a complaint around 2008 about Barrowman’s conduct on the set of Torchwood. “I met with John and reprimanded him,” Gardner said, adding that she also spoke to other executive producers, Barrowman’s agent, and the head of BBC drama commissioning, to “make it clear to both John and his agent that behaviour of this kind would not be tolerated … To my knowledge, John’s inappropriate behaviour stopped thereafter,” she added.

-------------- So it was inappropriate, but not predatory, and he stopped after being reprimanded...yet 10 years later they're coming for him...

I'm always embarrassed for people when they admit they read Queerty.

[...]

[quote]If even the people involved didn't consider it predatory behavior (unlike Clarke), why are they whining about it a decade later? What are they hoping to accomplish, knowing how it would be lumped in with actual predators in today's atmosphere?

The writer is trying to gain attention by throwing Barrowman under the bus again, years later, attempting to lump him in with what Noel Clarke did. It's transparent and stupid.

Even the quotes about what Barrowman did on set are from years ago, they were brought up by the cast that was actually there and they seemed to have a pretty clear grasp on the idea that while what he did could be annoying it was ultimately harmless.

It would be a different story if one of them came out today and said he did something horrible to them or around them that made them feel threatened or unsafe but they haven't now and they didn't then.

Clarke's story is very much a different one.

I think this gained traction when the Clarke allegations came out and an take off a old panel discussion with Clarke discussing barrowmans antics resurfaced.

R15 is correct, but putting it on someone’s shoulder takes it to another level though.

[Quote] The tribute video was filmed for Doctor Who executive producers Julie Gardner and Russell T Davies. “Can’t block out,” sang Tennant, “please lock out, images of Johnny B getting his cock out.” The camera cuts to Barrowman, delivering a wink to the camera.

This rather undermines trying to give Barrowman his just desserts now.

Will they go after Patti LuPone's baps next?

[...]

What's happening is the woke press aren't happy another black man is being done for being a pervert and so they need a white guy to sacrifice, just incase people start questioning BLM. Barrowman is a white, gay man and that's something the trans supporting, homophobic, white male hating twitter freaks hate.

[...]

There are lots of anecdotes about Barrowman's behavior on sets. It was often presented as an example of his attempts to make his sexuality known and accepted, through humor. He also has a foot and tickle fetish and if any actor was vulnerable for a scene, he'd take advantage of it and tickle or lick whatever was exposed as a form of teasing.

Immature, yes. Predatory, maybe. Uncomfortable, depends.

Has there been detailed accusations about Clarke?

[quote] "The BBC is against all forms of inappropriate behavior and we’re shocked to hear of these allegations."

*cough* Jimmy Saville *cough*

*cough* Noel Clarke *cough*

[quote]Has the behavior continued?

Roll tape from their Palm Springs compound.

Isn’t he in an open marriage?

Of course he is, massive slut.

I think I wouldn’t mind but I wouldn’t find it funny or clever either. If you do it once I guess the surprise would make it funny but doing it all the time would make it tired bad joke.

Is Danny Dyer going to get in trouble now as well?

[...]

It was gross and childish behavior but if he was reprimanded about it 13 bloody years ago and stopped, this is a pointless witch hunt.

John Barrowman removed from Doctor Who event after indecent exposure allegations:

[...]

Is the Jenna the article quotes Richard Madden’s ex girlfriend Jenna Coleman?

[...]

[quote]I'm not defending his behavior, but I think it's important to consider the context/timing.

You know I think that's a really good point, in all seriousness. When you look back past misdeeds you have to ask yourself, what does it say about us? What we were willing to put up with then? What was tolerated and why? Context is vital. What was wrong may have been accepted, if not acceptable, yet nobody really thought about why. Maybe we have to cancel ourselves, too. Sounds like what Barrowman did here was adolescent, idiotic, pathetic behaviour in a grown man but not sexual misconduct.

[quote]Has there been detailed accusations about Clarke?

Yes. 20 women have accused Clarke of harassment. There's a thread here:

It is absurd to equate what Barrowman did with what Clarke allegedly did. So lame.

I heard these stories years ago reported as light hearted fun. What a rascal! Now, these jokes aren’t funny anymore.

He shared the stage with Betty Lynn in West End in Sunset. Imagine Betty Lynn sucking cocks (rumor here) and John showing his cock to whomever, what a show it was backstage!

[quote]Putting your penis on someone's shoulder

Pics please.

This is totally ridiculous.

To cut Barrowman some slack, lots (not all) but lots of gay men, especially of his generation, spent their teenage years in the closet. The obsession with sex on the gay male scene is widely acknowledged. Years of repression of one's sexuality can have an effect, a lot of gay men are quite immature that way. Gay men celebrate their sexuality when together because it's often the one thing they have in common with each other. If John was getting his cock out in a gay bar or at a gay party literally no one would give a fuck.

Doing it at work...in mixed company (sex and sexuality) is different. But he was reprimanded and as I understand it has not done it since. Some people did complain, it was dealt with and he changed his behaviour. What more can the guy do? Have his cock chopped off so he never gets it out again?

Are we really relating flashing to homosexuality?

“Fear of male sexuality is out of control.”

You tacky cunt, what kind of a mess are you when you think whipping out your dick at work is “male sexuality”.

Team Barrowman

Leave Johnny B alone!

Prediction: At future autograph shows, the Barrowman dick on the shoulder shot will be $1000.

Is his husband Scott Gill still hot now?

[quote] “Fear of male sexuality is out of control.”

Jack Donovan, is that you?

[Quote] Is his husband Scott Gill still hot now?

With that big ol' hog of his, he'll always be hot to somebody.

I've always liked him, but for years I've thought he was getting way too full of himself. I get the feeling because he had successfully integrated his gayness into his act and no one seemed to be turned off by it he has little by little gotten overly reckless in his actions in public. Most any public event I've seen him involved with showed him turning his gayness into a public spectacle. Yes, most of his audiences laughed and played along with it as if they were having a grand ol' time watching the queer minstrel do his thing innocently up on stage. And I think all that acceptance went to his head and he figured he could do no wrong. Now he's finding out that he can, and did.

This is from Popbitch, the long running gossip website.

To hear him talk, you'd think Barrowman just flops it out and taps it against things. As longtime Popbitch readers know, he's much more flamboyant than that. In his time, he's used it as a hanger for his castmates' props in panto, used it to wipe down his breakfast bar for guests, and – in one particularly memorable instance – used it to cut up a birthday cake.

Barrowman has been doing this for decades. Comfort with being out has nothing to do with it, armchair psychologists.

Isn't there a Barrowman cock-in-a-hotdog-bun pic out there?

In light of these revelations, I imagine that time he flung diarrhea on an audience member was just for kicks too.

Public assault (of his husband).

The latest:

Why aren’t “larking about” and “having your willy out” bigger things here in the states?

If someone at my job CONTINUOUSLY pulled out their dick as a joke. I would like them to be fired for stupidity.

Agreed, R64. You would think a grown man would know that he's not supposed to pull his dick out at work every 2 minutes.

Barrowman needs to grow up.

Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free.

Nudity is (or at least was) no big deal in the UK, r65. Full frontal nudity is shown on TV after 9:30. Blood and gore you don't see but someone's willy is okay.

Full frontal nudity is no problem in the right context, but if someone pulls their cock out at work, that's a guaranteed firing. Also you've clearly not seen a lot of British TV, after the 9pm watershed you can swear, fuck, go nude and blow people apart. Some strong language is allowed prior to 9, depending on the context. The rules used to be much looser, kids shows would include swearing and strong storylines, a famous kids show called Grange hill featured drugs, death, rape and other stuff until that changed in the early 00s.

I always felt like Benny Hill must have flashed his coworkers a lot on his show, or definitely got his bum out for them. There just seems like there would be a more honored tradition of this in Great Britain, where in the states we’d get hung up about this type of thing. Imagine if Carol Burnett had been a regular tit flasher how much better it would have made her show?

Jimmy Savile used to get his cock out a lot behind the scenes...

I lived there for a few years, r69. So I'm quite familiar. The prudishness over nudity is relatively new and the incidents we're talking about happened over a decade ago...well before this new puritanical attitude and cancel culture took hold. He apologized and stopped long ago...move the fuck on.

What about that British entertainer who killed and raped that twink in the pool, he sounds like he would have been a serial exposer?

R72 He was deeply in the closet for years, I think his issues were more around alcohol and drugs than anything sexual.

People should not be held account for behaviour in a different era with that had different mores. (60s, 70s & early 80s was anything goes.) Same goes for slavery etc etc etc. To do so is Woke villany.

Human Relations did try to speak with him about it. We have the film.

Trigger warning: It's a bit saucy.

I would watch a Ryan Murphy show called “Woke Villainy.”

I say bring back slavery, us white folk did very well out of it.

Has Angie Dickinson commented yet?

[quote]I always felt like Benny Hill must have flashed his coworkers a lot on his show, or definitely got his bum out for them.

Nope.

All the "Hill's Angels" said Benny was a complete gentleman and treated them all with respect.

Hence why the gay rumors surround him.

Gorgeous, apparently great cock, likes boys and he can do this...the whole package

It was time for him to retire anyway.

[Quote] Uncomfortable, depends.

Never!

He sounds obnoxious.

He seems fun, and I bet nobody cared that much. But now the fraudulent HR and PR types have to descend and pretend it was all so meaningful and traumatic.

Oh fuck this nonsense and the bitches who pretend it's real.

I wouldn't take it as read that nobody cared. If you were a guest star on "Torchwood," would you feel like you could say anything? I think it's fair to want to not see your co-worker's genitals at work.

He should work for Channel 4 that produces Naked Attraction. He’d be perfect over there. (I still can’t believe they are allowed to show that on network TV.).

Channel 4 used to have a quic show called "Naked Elvis." Each episode would culminate with the stripper (there were several rotated over the series) disrobing completely and waving his dick at the camera.

*quiz

Doesn't anyone remember the dick-in-a-hot-dog-bun pic? Has DL lost its long term memory?

HE'S FAT!!!!

When he reappeared on DW, it looked like he'd eaten all of his and Matt Smith's feelings.

He needs to go away until he loses the chins and the gut.

So, at what point is a penis absurdly flopped out "sexual misconduct"?

Why is a visible penis misconduct when women has flopping their tits all over and equating to "oops" show their tramp stamps and top four inches of their ass cracks?

Frankly, I wish he had sexually misconducted himself in my presence or even at me.

Back in the Torchwood days, he was pretty hot.

Scroll down and see the pics he takes with fans at conventions.

whenever I see a report on misconduct I think of that sexual harassment sketch on SNL with Tom Brady, Fred Armisen (sp?), Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler (who did a great job as a woman pissed off that Fred's character asked her out for coffee).

The motto was if you want to commit sexual harassment "be attractive" and "don't be unattractive."

Thre's truth in that r94 video. One thing I've notice i s really gorgeous guys like Barrowman can get away with a lot of inappropriate shit when they're young and handsome. But even with his features and body, he still was not the Adonis in his 30s and 40s he was in his 20s, and kept trying to be a flirt and inappropriate all the same: it often takes years for once extremely gorgeous people to realize they're no longer gorgeous.

He's still sexy. He can put his genitals anywhere he wants on me.

R96, You filthy slut.

When Barrowman starred as "Bobby" in the DC revival of Company in 2002, he wore a wife beater during the Barcelona scene, which is usually played shirtless.

[quote] He's still sexy. He can put his genitals anywhere he wants on me.

Well, since you're not a co-worker, that's not the issue here.

Did he do anything more than flash his knob?

R93 he looks delicious in the first pic

They said he put his dick on people R100.

[quote] Did he do anything more than flash his knob?

Why do you as? is that not harassment in your books?

White women love to get back at gay men. It drives them crazy that we don't desire them. So they pretend something dumb like flashing is a HUGE infraction upon them. And they have a delusional amount of self worth, so they believe that anyone who doesn't worship the ground they walk upon is the devil. AKA "Karen".

Oh, purr purr John Barrowman. White women strike again!

r104 are you American?

[quote] is that not harassment in your books?

Oh, dear, and no. Having to see fat fraus in clothes two sizes too small every day is harassment.

I wonder what he got up to on the set of Arrow.

He and Stephen Amell are great friends. Stephen even presented John with his 50th Birthday cake wearing almost nothing.

50th Birthday

It’s sad to imagine the disappointment of finding out that someone is flashing their knob on the Arrow set, and finding out that it is Barowman and not Amell.

That would rather depend on the knobs, dear.

John Barrowperson, don't be insensitive.

John Barrowman is notoriously smarmy there's very little secret about, and I don't construe a guy flashing his knob as being sexual assault. However, in fairness, if any of us exposed our genitals to our coworkers, even in jest, we'd likely be fired within a heartbeat.

He’s hot. Who cares?

This was probably mentioned earlier so bear with me (currently at a pool with a shitty WiFi connection and would rather listen to an endless loop of Melissa Errico shouting “Peter! Peter!” in her whiney nasal twang than to attempt to scroll up on my phone at the moment) but did Barrowman have Darren Star blow him? Is that how he ended up landing the lead in notorious flop “Central Park West?” Second, is that meaty “cock in a bun” photo that was circulating all over the Internet in 1996 and 1997 ever determined to definitively be his? It seems to have disappeared from the first few Google search pages of the Interwebs although I know I still have it on a Zip Disc (!) somewhere.

Why does he think hauling out your junk every two seconds is the height of hilarity? Is he trying to be shocking and subversive? I mean, everyone on the planet has seen dick. It’s not that shocking.

[quote]ohn Barrowman is notoriously smarmy there's very little secret about, and I don't construe a guy flashing his knob as being sexual assault. However, in fairness, if any of us exposed our genitals to our coworkers, even in jest, we'd likely be fired within a heartbeat.

Yeah but you don't work in an industry where you co-worker could be dressed for Antartica one day and the next day be completely naked.

It’s funny how the same person who’d have been flattered by Barrowman flashing them in his Central Park West days, will cry assault if Barrowman flashed them today

Rex Smith was also known to present his jumbo size cock at inappropriate moments.

[quote] Barrowman is notoriously smarmy

No. Barrowman is most likely hypomanic. I saw his behavior (not the wang) at All-State Choir in the 80s.

It comes off as forced, but it’s somebody speeding while trying to be polite.

[Quote] but did Barrowman have Darren Star blow him? Is that how he ended up landing the lead in notorious flop “Central Park West?”

????

R122 ???!