Miles Kane (left) with Last Shadow Puppets’ bandmate Alex Turner. (Image Credit: David M. Benett / Getty Images)
Miles Kane has issued an apology after making a female journalist feel uncomfortable during her interview with the musician and his Last Shadow Puppets bandmate Alex Turner, though his apology hasn’t exactly been accepted with open arms.
Spin Magazine‘s associate editor Rachel Brodsky detailed how she felt Kane had behaved inappropriately during her interview with him and Turner, which included Kane attempting to point her in the direction of Turner’s “bulge”, along with the following excerpt:
“So, what else are you guys doing today?”
“Do you want to go upstairs?” Kane asks.
“No,” I respond, laughing nervously.
The boys’ publicist snaps to attention: “I did warn you when you arrived that they were on kind of a downward spiral.”
“I’m joking, I’m joking!” Kane says, chuckling.
I laugh along despite feeling unnerved. It’s growing clearer that I’m caught in an increasingly distasteful situation. If I wasn’t on a professional assignment, I would tell him where he could go instead of “upstairs.”
Brodsky noted that after wrapping up the interview, Turner gave her a “nice goodbye handshake” whereas Kane “yank[ed]” her in for “not-entirely consensual kiss on the cheek.”
Image Credit: David M. Benett / Getty Images
Brodsky concluded her piece by revealing how upon learning of her feeling uncomfortable during the interview, Kane sent her the following note:
Dear Rachel
I really enjoyed chatting to you about the new record. I am just very sorry that silly remarks I made during our interview have caused offence. I recognise my ‘Carry On’ humour during the interview was ill judged and I am mortified that it made you feel uncomfortable. Please accept my sincere apologies.
Miles.
However, she added that although she “appreciates Kane’s note”, it didn’t help her feel better regarding the events that had transpired in the interview. “It certainly didn’t erase that afternoon or the other times I’ve felt objectified on the job”, she continued.
While the interview could well have been harmless in Kane’s mind, and God knows the Internet doesn’t need yet another witch hunt (though one suspects that Brodsky will come under more scrutiny for Kane’s actions than he will, given the Internet’s propensity for pointing the finger at women during these kind of incidents), her article is a good deconstruction of how not to treat a female professional regardless of whether or not you’ve played at a few festivals.
Regardless of whether or not Kane’s actions were solely in jest, or whether his apology came as a result of him trying to exhibit some form of damage control after realising he’d well and truly fucked up, perhaps he will now understand that sexually propositioning a reporter – whether intended as a joke or not – is perhaps not the best course of action to take, unless you intentionally wish to solidify your public image as “sexist dickhead”.
