The singer shared a meme of Oprah kissing Harvey Weinstein earlier this week.
Seal doesn’t want his intentions to get twisted. The 54-year-old singer took to Facebook to post a video response in the aftermath of a controversial meme he shared on Wednesday.
The meme featured Oprah Winfrey kissing Harvey Weinstein and read, “When you have been part of the problem for decades, but suddenly they all think you’re the solution.”
Seal captioned the post, “Oh I forgot, that’s right… you’d heard the rumours but you had no idea he was actually serially assaulting young starry-eyed actresses who in turn had no idea what they were getting into. My bad. #SanctimoniousHollywood.”
The post was interpreted many different ways, so Seal shared his intentions in a Facebook video on Thursday.
Apologizing for his “delayed response,” Seal began, “Now let’s get straight to it. Let me start by saying that I have an enormous amount of respect for everything that Oprah has achieved and contributed in her life.”
He went on to emphasize that he reposted a meme that he had not made himself, saying, “What I reposted was not an attack on Oprah at all. She just happened to be the person photographed with the pig in the picture. No, what I reposted was commentary on the hypocritical and double standard nature and behavior of Hollywood.”
The singer slammed Fox News for interpreting his post as being anti-Oprah, and singled out former commentator Stacey Dash. Dash had previously tweeted an article about Seal’s original post, writing, “Ouch, he does make a good point though.”
“Stacy Dash, keep my name out of your mouth,” he said. “Do not retweet, requote anything I have said in order to reinforce your self-hating agenda. You live in the sunken place. Again, this was not an attack against Oprah. This was an observation of the toxic nature of Hollywood, and I believe that a conscious people are a progressive people.”
Seal also spoke out for the victims of sexual assault and harassment, saying he didn’t feel enough had been done to punish their attackers.
“To those of us who support the Me Too movement, just know this, not one of the women who have been sexually abused, not one of the women who have come forward has received any real justice whatsoever,” he continued. “Losing your job because you either a) raped b) sexually abused or even sexually harassed a woman is not real punishment. You steal from the post office, you go to jail. #RealTalk for a second we all know what would happen to any one of those power abusers if they looked like me.”
He asked those coming forward to continue to do so, and had a message for everyone else.
“How about #WeAllKnew? How about #TellTheTruth? How about #Accountability?” he suggested.
For more on Seal’s original post, watch the clip below.
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