Arrow alum John Barrowman opened up about how resurfaced reports of him exposing himself publicly on various sets had long-lasting effects on his career and mental health.
During the Tuesday, September 23, episode of the “Inside of You” podcast, host Michael Rosenbaum revealed that he previously recorded a conversation with Barrowman, 58, which was cut before it aired at the actor’s request. The duo sat down for a new interview after Barrowman felt more comfortable speaking in detail about remaining naked on set after filming NSFW scenes.
“I’m fully transparent that I did silly things,” Barrowman noted. “When I was doing nude scenes, I was making myself comfortable doing stuff and other people were laughing.”
Barrowman claimed that “no one complained” about his behavior. Instead, the controversy started because of an article that mentioned Barrowman’s past comments about exposing himself.
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“It got bigger and bigger and bigger as people started repeating the stories. It blew up into something that was not factually correct,” he explained. “All of a sudden — it was May 2021 that the article came out — that was the day I say that my world collapsed around me.”
Barrowman is known for his roles as Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood and as Malcolm Merlyn in the Arrow universe on The CW. Anecdotes about Barrowman being naked on set were told by numerous costars over the years, but it wasn’t until sexual harassment accusations were made against fellow Doctor Who star Noel Clarke in 2021 that Barrowman’s past behavior was brought up again. (Clarke, now 49, denied the allegations.)
At the time, Barrowman issued a statement, which read, “My high-spirited behaviour which was only ever intended in good humour to entertain colleagues on set and backstage has been well-documented, including in my autobiographies and even in song. There were a couple of times during filming where I’d resort to tomfoolery, but none of this was ever intended nor interpreted as being sexual in nature.”
He continued: “With the benefit of hindsight, I understand that upset may have been caused by my exuberant behaviour and I have apologised for this previously. Since my apology in November 2008, my understanding and behaviour have also changed. At no point was I ever made aware of any sexual harassment, bullying, or sexually predatory behaviour on set and I was certainly not aware of the allegations about Noel Clarke.”
Barrowman admitted on Tuesday that the aftermath of the scandal was difficult on him.
“Now, I’m saying right off the bat here, I don’t want your sympathy,” he said on the podcast. “I am not doing this to say, ‘Poor me.’ Because I did what I did. What upsets me the most — and where I am now unable to talk about it in a calm manner — is the silence that happened. The silence was deafening from cast members and from friends.”
While reflecting on the controversy, Barrowman said it felt like everyone in his life “turned” on him “literally overnight.”
“People were dropping me from things left, right and center,” he shared. “It wasn’t sexual. It was just ridiculous physical comedy. No one on set ever said [anything]. People can talk and they’re allowed to say what they want. But when they tried to say I was a sexual predator — it is wrong. That’s just ridiculous. When they tried to call me a pedophile, that is wrong.”
He added: “There were all these different words and all the labels they tried to put on me. I did it for stupidity and for fun to make people laugh. Even when I was doing nude scenes in the show — which were written and I was never asked if I wanted to do them or not. … I’ve always said, ‘If anybody was offended, upset or complained, please come to me. Because I will come to you personally and I will apologize to you.’ But no one came forward.”
Barrowman recalled having a difficult time on certain sets that required him to strip down often, adding, “In those days, you do it because you think you’ll lose your job if you don’t. … When I was naked on set, the office cleared out and everybody came down because they knew they were going to have a laugh.”
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The actor struggled with severe depression in the aftermath of the 2021 scandal, revealing that he contemplated suicide.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. They couldn’t get me for being gay. They couldn’t get me for a lot of other things,” Barrowman, who has been married to Scott Gill since 2013, said. “I’m an open book. So they had to find a way to get me. This was the way that they chose to try to demolish me. … I was suicidal. At that time, I drove out to the desert quite a few times to figure out how I was going to do it.”
Barrowman admitted that he felt disappointed by “the lack of support from cast members, from friends, from production and from companies that I had helped build and made a lot of money for” amid the controversy. Gil, 62, even went so far as to reach out to Barrowman’s former costars.
“It was at that point — when I got to that really bad dark spot — where Scott had to call and beg some people to come out and publicly say, ‘Knock it off,’ [to the online commentators]. Those were [my] cast members,” Barrowman said. “He had to beg them.”
Later in the episode, Barrowman opened up about how his view has shifted — and how his career has changed.
“What they’re trying to take away from me is the silliness and the fun that I have in me. I did not want that to change me. So I had to figure out a way that I could still keep that without what happened destroying who I am inside. I think I’ve figured it out,” he said. “It’s very hard to get [roles] because what they do now is they go on Wikipedia. If you have anything that pops up there — anything controversial — you’re f***ed.”
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