Katherine Ryan says she “wrestled” with her conscience over whether to work with a male celebrity she says she believes “was or is dangerous”.
The Canadian comedian first spoke about an “open secret” in the industry back in 2022, telling fellow comic Sara Pascoe she had confronted the alleged predator while filming a TV show with him.
She later reiterated her claims during an interview with Louis Theroux.
Ryan has never publicly revealed the name of the alleged abuser, or the name of the programme she was recording with them.
Speaking about her decision to confront the person, she told Lauren Laverne on Sunday’s Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4: “I had a choice. I could go to work with someone whom I believe to be a perpetrator of sexual assault. Or I could turn down the job.”
Ryan added: “The choice is do I go to work with someone who I think is very problematic and do I stand near them and laugh and smile and look like I allowing this kind of person to still be on television or do I stay home?
“That was really difficult for me. That’s what I wrestled with the most, because I believe that this person was or is dangerous.”
She says she “compromised,” deciding: “I’m going to go, but I’m going to let him know under no uncertain terms what I think of him.
“I’m not going to just smile and look like I’m allowing this behaviour. I’m not going to let him think that I don’t know and that everybody he works with is just going to let him get away with it.”
She told Laverne she had received “pushback” following the revelation, but said people were asking her to give the names of the alleged female victims rather than the male comic himself.
She said she also still questions herself about her decision: “Did I do the right thing or the wrong thing? I still don’t know.”
When asked by Laverne how the unnamed man reacted, Ryan said: “he didn’t have much of a reaction… He certainly didn’t have an obvious reaction”.
But she said that the reaction from those around her had been positive: “People really liked what I said. I think they thought that it was funny and courageous”.
Ryan said that while some people may have questioned whether or not she was joking, she was deadly serious, telling Laverne: “Certainly the people who know, know that I wasn’t joking.”
She also spoke about the wider comedy scene, saying that when she first started out on comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats back in 2012 she “didn’t really feel intimidated by the men,” but made the decision to be her “authentic” self and “never subscribed to these ideas of what a woman should be”.
A woman who was charged with selling Friends star Matthew Parry the dose of the drug that killed him has agreed to plead guilty.
Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen”, is the fifth and final defendant to strike a plea deal with prosecutors, avoiding a trial that was set to take place in September.
The 42-year-old agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
She agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a dual US and UK national, as a prolific drug dealer known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen”, often using the term in court documents and even including it in the official name of the case.
Image: Actor Matthew Perry in 2015. File pic: Reuters
She agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors said.
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Image: Dr. Mark Chavez, a physician from San Diego, who is charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s fatal overdose. Pic: AP
She is facing up to 45 years in prison.
Sangha and a doctor named Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal in June, had been the primary targets of the investigation.
Three other defendants – Mark Chavez, who it was claimed bought the drug from Sangha, Kenneth Iwamasa, and Erik Flemin – agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.
Image: Friends became one of the most popular TV shows in the world in the 1990s and 2000s
Prosecutors allege Chavez funnelled ketamine to Plasencia, securing some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.
In one instance, prosecutors allege that Plasencia “charged Perry $2,000 (£1,500) a vial that cost Dr Chavez approximately $12 (£9)”.
Perry died in his home in October 2023, aged 54, after getting ketamine from his regular doctor for treatment of depression, which is an increasingly common use for the surgical anaesthetic.
The actor was taking ketamine six to eight times a day before he died, according to court documents.
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Sharon Osbourne pays emotional tribute to Ozzy
The BBC reportedthe show would reveal the “extraordinary rollercoaster” of the Osbournes’ lives as Ozzy tries “heroically” to get fit enough to perform again.
It’s said to feature “unique and intimate access” to the family, including Ozzy’s children, Jack and Kelly, who appeared in the reality series that made them household names in the early 2000s.
The Black Sabbath frontman, who had Parkinson’s disease, died last month – just a few weeks after his final all-star gig at Birmingham’s Villa Park.
British actor Terence Stamp – who famously played General Zod in Superman and Superman II – has died at the age of 87.
The Oscar-nominated actor, who was born in London’s East End, also starred in hits such as Theorem, A Season in Hell, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
He formed one of Britain’s most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in “Far From the Madding Crowd” in 1967.
In a statement, his family said: “He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.