Angela Lansbury is walking back her statements about sexual assault while simultaneously firing back at critics of her controversial viewpoint.
On Wednesday evening, the 92-year-old actress released a statement addressing the controversy behind her previous words. “There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner,” she said. “I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise.”
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Lansbury made her initial comments while speaking to the U.K.’s Radio Times magazine.
“We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive … and unfortunately it has backfired on us — and this is where we are today,” she said, going on to say that “we must sometimes take blame, women.”
The Oscar-nominated actress — who has starred in projects like Murder She Wrote and voiced the character of Mrs. Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast — added that she never suffered any kind of harassment during her career and that individual women were not to blame.
In her statement on Wednesday, she added that, “Those who have known the quality of my work and the many public statements I have made over the course of my life, must know, that I am a strong supporter of women’s rights.”
She concluded her statement by addressing the personal backlash she had received directly.
“Lastly, I would like to add that I am troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said,” she said.
Lansbury’s comments come after a wave of sexual assault allegations have been leveled at a number of prominent authority figures, including film producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Kevin Spacey and most recently, journalist and Today show lead anchor Matt Lauer.
“Should women be prepared for this? No, they shouldn’t have to be!” Lansbury said in her initial comment to Radio Times. “There’s no excuse for that. And I think it will stop now — it will have to. I think a lot of men must be very worried at this point.”
