Nearly a year after being accused of sexual harassment, Mad Men creator and showrunner Matthew Weiner says he doesn’t recall making an alleged lewd comment to a female writer on the critically acclaimed AMC series.
“I really don’t remember saying that,” Weiner said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “I’m not hedging to say it’s not impossible that I said that, but I really don’t remember saying it.”
In November 2017, former Emmy Award-winning Mad Men writer Kater Gordon alleged that Weiner made an inappropriate comment years earlier while the two worked late on the series one night. She claimed that Weiner said to her that she owed it to him to let him see her naked, to which she did not oblige. She worked on the series for one more season but was not invited back to work on the show in 2009, and has since left the television industry.
Weiner initially denied the allegation outright in November before conceding it wasn’t “impossible” during his Vanity Fair interview. He continued: “I can’t see a scenario where I would say that. What I can see is, it was 10 years ago and I don’t remember saying it. When someone says you said something, like the experience we just had right now—I don’t remember saying that.”
“I never felt that way and I never acted that way towards Kater,” Weiner added.
Gordon, who made the claim to The Information last year, told the outlet that the alleged incident led to her departure from the television industry.
“I had the Emmy, but instead of being able to use that as a launch pad for the rest of my career, it became an anchor because I felt I had to answer to speculative stories in the press,” she said. “I eventually walked away instead of fighting back.”
Weiner is currently wrapping up a new anthology series for Amazon titled The Romanoffs, which will debut later this month.