Doctor Who’s John Barrowman thanks fans for support amid flashing scandal

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness) has been under fire for his inappropriate behavior on the sets of Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Doctor Who has been weathering a few scandals lately. Noel Clarke, who played the companion Mickey Smith, has been accused of sexual misconduct, with the BBC pledging to investigate the allegations. Around the same time, an old quote of Clarke’s started making the rounds, about fellow Doctor Who alum John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness): in 2015, Smith joked about Barrowman’s propensity for getting out his genitals “every five seconds” and “hitting it on everything.” Crew members backed up these reports, although they weren’t as amused.

Reports of Barrowman’s flashing habit had been made over the years; it was something of an open secret. Although he’d been reprimanded on the set of Torchwood for his behavior, Barrowman is still a part of the franchise and reprised his role as Captain Jack as recently as Doctor Who season 12. But after his behavior came back into the discussion, he was removed from a Doctor Who interactive exhibit and a Torchwood audio story he was to star in was scrapped. According to Sky News, his future as a judge on Dancing on Ice is in doubt.

Amid this tumult, Barrowman apologized anew for his behavior. “With the benefit of hindsight, I understand that upset may have been caused by my exuberant behaviour and I have apologised for this previously,” he said in a statement. “Since my apology in November 2008, my understanding and behaviour have also changed.”

Now, Barrowman has sent out a message of thanks to the many fans who have supported him during this period:

"Hi everybody, it’s John here and I just want to say thank you very much to all of my fan family and everybody who has reached out with the countless messages of support over the last few weeks. It has meant such a great deal to me and has really touched me to know that people are supporting me and standing by me and sending their love and all of their appreciation and kind words…Hopefully we will all be back together some time soon and I look forward to it. Much love and thank you."

So is this the kind of scandal that will sideline Barrowman permanently or the sort of thing that will blow over? That’s the question he’s no doubt asking himself right now. I think it might help if he didn’t refer to his flashing as “exuberant behaviour” and otherwise take more responsibility for it. I’m sure he didn’t mean any offense by it…but it’s still taking out your genitalia at work; I don’t think it’s hard to understand why that’s inappropriate.

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