Louis C.K. wins Grammy for best comedy album
Comedian Louis C.K. took home a Grammy Award Sunday night, almost five years after admitting to a cycle of sexual misconduct. The comedian won Best Comedy Album for "Sincerely," his first standup special released since the allegations.
The comedian has been nominated two prior times for comedy albums in 2012 and 2017. This is the second time he's won a Grammy, but the first since multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.
In November 2017, multiple women said C.K. exposed himself to them and masturbated in front of them without consent. C.K admitted to the accusations and issued an apology.
"The power I had over these women is that they admired me," he said in a statement. "And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions."
In "Sincerely," C.K. made several comments addressing the allegations, but in his return to the comedy stage, The New York Times said he attempts to double down "on the value of saying the wrong thing."
"It's kind of like a Negro spiritual," he said in the special while discussing consent. "It's sort of similar. So to assume that she likes it is like if they heard slaves singing in the field and you're like, 'Hey, they're having a good time out there."
Congrats Best Comedy Album winner - 'Sincerely Louis CK' Louis C.K.
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) April 3, 2022
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"Comedy like many fields is a male-dominated industry and there's an expectation especially if you're a comedian, a female comedian, that you can hang with it, you can take a dirty joke, you can be accepting of some raunch that would be out of place in most workplaces," New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik, who broke the story about the allegations against C.K, told CBS This Morning in 2017.
"One of the things that's interesting about this behavior is that it really hits deeply, and an apology is a great move to make but it doesn't necessarily erase the pain or the trauma of the original experience," she added.
In 2018, C.K returned to the world of standup with a performance at New York's Comedy Cellar, before making several attempts at a comeback. While many of his sets addressing his sexual misconduct allegations, C.K drew controversy over comments about Auschwitz and the Parkland school shooting.