John Mulaney Stopped Working with Louis C.K.’s Former Manager Dave Becky in 2017
Photo courtesy of Getty ImagesJohn Mulaney has revealed in an interview with Vulture that he stopped working with Dave Becky in late 2017. Today’s interview marks the first time Mulaney has talked about this decision, and it also makes Mulaney perhaps the biggest name in comedy to have fired Becky, who was accused of enabling Louis C.K.’s history of sexual misconduct in November 2017.
Even if you aren’t especially tuned into the business side of comedy or entertainment, you might remember the name Dave Becky. He’s a powerful manager and producer from 3 Arts Entertainment who represents a long list of top comedians, including Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, and Hannibal Buress, among many others. He was also Louis C.K.’s long-time manager who allegedly silenced C.K.’s victims from coming forward, according to what two of them, Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov, told The New York Times. That would make him a powerful manager, producer and enabler of sexual misconduct, and thus maybe not the best guy to have representing your professional interests. And yet, after that news broke in late 2017, few of his clients fired or repudiated him. Pamela Adlon did fire him in the immediate wake of the C.K. scandal, and he lost his executive producer credit on Broad City’s last season, but otherwise it seemed like most of Becky’s clients just stuck with him.
Mulaney was one of those clients, but that relationship ended shortly after the C.K. scandal erupted into the public. He tells Vulture’s Megh Wright that he stopped working with Becky in November 2017, and says he’s only now revealing that because no journalist had asked him about it. “When it happened—when I made the decision—in terms of why I didn’t make a press release, honestly, I didn’t feel I had anything that noble to add, and issuing a simple statement of one sentence that I fired [Becky] seemed evasive and honestly an unhelpful use of everyone’s time and taking up oxygen,” Mulaney tells Wright. Later in the interview he explains both why he hasn’t addressed the Becky situation or the larger #MeToo issues in comedy, saying “I don’t think my thoughts and opinions matter in any way compared to the women who have been directly affected by these actions. I say this not at all to be evasive, but just to not talk anymore as a male in comedy who has not had to experience this. Other people should. Women’s opinions matter, and mine does not.”
You can read the full interview over at Vulture. And if you’re a journalist who has upcoming interviews scheduled with any of Becky’s clients, you probably know at least one question you should ask now.