-I was sexually assaulted.

-I was afraid to speak up.

-He grabbed me at work.

-What about due process?

-When you're a star, they let you do it.

-I need to keep my job, so I can't say anything.

-I was afraid to speak up.

-She's a liar.

-All women deserve to be heard.

-Open your eyes.

-What am I supposed to say?

-This has been happening for decades.

-This is "#MeToo, Now What?"

-- a new series examining sexual harassment in America.

-This program is made possible in part I have spent my life amplifying the voices of women who have been silenced and unheard.

For decades, when women spoke up, they were dismissed, ignored, and silenced.

Finally, women's pain is being heard.

-When I was a young soldier, I was sexually assaulted.

What was most horrifying about the experience was how my chain of command reacted.

They attacked my sexual history.

-I was sexually harassed.

There were unwanted movements that were made to me physically.

I did not want it.

I said no.

I pushed back.

I filed a grievance the next day.

At that time, HR told me that, "Well, now that you've come to me, I'm gonna have to let lawyers know.

And you know he has a family, right?"

And as I was leaving, the HR Director told me, "Just remember, don't drink with men."

-As the reckoning began, the accused rushed to issue apologies.

But can they be believed?

-People have not done a great job of coming out and owning it and apologizing.

I think they stand up and say half-hearted apologies like, "If you felt hurt by this, I'm sorry for that, but we're moving on because we have bigger and better things to do."

-They're not sorry.

You can't do 150 people and say that now you're sorry about it.

You're only sorry that you got caught.

-Tonight, an exclusive interview -- an accuser and the man she accused.

One year before the MeToo Movement, the influential film critic Devin Faraci was at the height of his career, interviewing film legends and jetting between movie sets.

A self-proclaimed feminist, millions read his film reviews.

Then, the shocking "Access Hollywood" tape leaked.

-[ Laughs ] Devin rapidly responded.

Then a woman from his past fired back, "Do you remember grabbing me?"

The Twitter backlash was swift, and Devin's world came crashing down.

-I was just told that I had sexually assaulted a woman, and I did not believe that I was the kind of guy that did that.

I was a total ass----, and I took pleasure in being a total ass----.

-I talked to Caroline.

And she said that she actually came to confront you.

-The only thing scarier than that phone call was coming here today.

-But first, Caroline opens up about Devin's vile act and the pain and shame she endured.

-It was with a friend of mine.

We were dancing.

And what I remember is that he stuck his hand down my pants.

And I immediately pushed him away, felt this kind of visceral, like, "No."

And then he did it again.

And I just remember feeling really embarrassed.

And I wasn't sure who I was embarrassed for, but just, like, a visceral sense of embarrassment.

And I think ultimately, at that time, I felt -- I felt bad for him, like he had done something that he should be embarrassed by.

He clearly wasn't.

-When you went home, did you tell anybody about it around the first few days?

-It didn't even occur to me to tell anyone.

Why would I tell anybody, because what could they do and who would care?

And I felt this sense of shame and embarrassment, like maybe I had done something that invited that, knowing that I didn't.

-Then two years later, you're saying something happened.

-Oh, so, yeah.

I found out from one of our friends that he had gone around telling people that -- that that had been consensual and that it had led to something else.

That night that he had walked around and said s-something really foul, like, "Smell my fingers" and stuff like that to our friends.

So to me, that took it from a place of this was just a really weird impulsive thing that he did to a different level.

And that's when I became really mad.

I did confront him about it.

And he just said, "I don't remember."

There was no apology.

There was just, "I don't remember."

-So you actually got dismissed when you told him.

-Right.

-Which is a pattern of what other women are saying.

And -- and in the la-- in all the other cases basically when -- when we speak, we get dismissed.

-Right.

-And were you living with anger and rage all that time?

-You know, on one hand, what -- The actual physical act of what happened to me was terrible.

But then, there's also this kind of larger, psychological pain, I think, really had kind of lodged itself in my body.

I mean, just a feeling like I was making myself sick, that I was so angry.

That it wasn't just like I had experienced anger once, but that this had almost become a place that I was constantly acting from.

-And then, something happened a year and a half ago, actually, that triggered another wave.

President Trump... -Mm-hmm.

-...or, then-Candidate Trump.

-So, it was something that he had tweeted about the "Access Hollywood" tape.

It was just a lightening bolt of -- It was anger, but it was also clarity about feeling like I -- I can't keep this to myself anymore.

There was a sense of hypocrisy, maybe, but more overwhelmingly it was this reminder of a sense of powerlessness and feeling like I couldn't stand that anymore.

And I just said, "Do you remember grabbing me in that same way?"

-How did you feel when he sent a public apology in a tweet?

-Devin responded to it -- the tweet -- pretty immediately.

He said, you know, "I don't remember this, but I can only apologize," or something like that.

So that pretty much wrapped up the idea that he was gonna deny it.

Honestly, it felt like -- It felt like a relief on a couple levels where I was no longer holding onto that anymore.

I had been able to vocalize it, and that I was now living in a culture that suddenly seemed to care about this.

-Then he got fired, right?

-Right.

So, his employer, Tim League, reached out to me and asked if we could talk on the phone.

Before I even said anything, he said, you know, "We've decided to take him, you know, off our books.

He's gonna seek treatment, and so we just wanted to let you know that."

-Then, less than a year later... -Mm-hmm.

-...he got rehired... -Right.

-...in a more junior position, but at the same company.

-Right.

-And it created another so-- social uproar.

-Right.

-How did you feel about that?

-It was suddenly presented to me as if, "Oh, yeah.

No, she hadn't actually asked for him to be fired.

So she's the arbiter of this, Caroline is.

So if she didn't ask for him to be fired, then why wouldn't we be allowed to hire him back?"

And so I felt like I had been made responsible for absolving him or not absolving him.

You know, people were like, "Oh, you were so reasonable and compassionate," you know, at the beginning, when I said I supported his recovery.

And that was now being used to say, "We could just do whatever, and she won't mind."

-A lot of people are saying, "These things are happening so long ago.

-Right.

-Why -- Just let it go."

-If it was so long ago and it doesn't really matter, then it shouldn't really matter for me to talk about it publicly, if that's how people feel about it.

I merely said what happened.

I didn't say what I thought should happen because of that.

I didn't say what I thought it meant about the world.

I merely said what happened, and that took off in a certain way because I think we're learning that that is part of this kind of more systemic problem.

Also, something that has happened a long time ago can still be wrecking havoc on you mind and body years later.

And that for me, being able to speak about that openly -- It really just felt like all of that bodily holding on for dear life was released.

-Tell me about your sense of self at the peak of your career.

-I was a total ass, and I took pleasure in being a total ass, and because I thought I was a righteous ass.

That was the thing -- I thought that I was doing the right thing.

I thought that I was being an ass---- to people who needed someone to be an ass---- to them.

It was hard.

I was full of myself, also, at the same time.

It was this complicated thing where I was -- I did not like myself, but I was also very convinced that I was right about everything and that everybody should listen to me.

-Now, life changed when you tweeted an -- a commentary about then-Candidate Trump and his statement about groping a woman in "Access Hollywood" tape.

-And like everybody else on Twitter, I needed to have an opinion about it.

And I realized that someone had tweeted back at me, "Do you remember doing that to me?"

And it was -- It was somebody I recognized from my past.

It was not just a random stranger.

It was this intense moment where I did not remember this thing, but I knew that period of my life when I knew this woman was a really dark and crummy period where I was not being a good person.

I had this sudden realization that I could not say that this hadn't happened.

Politically, personally, ideologically, I believed that if some-- if a woman made a claim like this, 9.8 times out of 10, it's true.

And so I had to accept it, and I accepted it.

I accept it.

It was stunning.

And I replied back an apology.

And then it was -- I mean, I was throwing up an hour later.

It was -- It was intense.

-How much did public shaming play a role in it, because I talked to Caroline, and she said that she actually came to confront you two years after the incidents and talk to you -- "Devin, you did this to me."

And that you at that time told her, "I don't remember.

-And I don't remember that, either.

I mean, yeah.

-I'm sorry," and sort of she felt dismissed.

-I don't remember her coming to me, which is not any attempt to discredit or deny.

And I was a self-centered jerk who was -- somebody came at me with a thing that was negative about me, I read it as an attack.

And so therefore, it was just pushed away.

"I didn't do that."

-So, now when you apologize on the Internet, on Twitter, how sincere was it?

How authentic was it?

-I mean, it was an immediate reaction.

I didn't think about it.

So I guess there's sincerity to be judged by sort of immediacy.

-And you got fired soon after?

-I resigned.

It was a mutual decision.

-Okay.

-There was a lot of talk in the initial days of like, "Well, this'll blow over.

Let's just lay low."

And I was like, "I don't think this is gonna blow over, and I think this is a big deal."

And to resign was the only choice.

I -- you know, I don't feel like I had a lot of, like, options or wiggle room or I could've, like, gamed it or whatever.

Immediately afterwards, I was suicidal.

-Immediately afterwards?

-Within the first day.

-Why?

-I was just told that I had sexually assaulted a woman, and I did not believe that I was the kind of guy that did that.

It was this overwhelming shame.

And my friends came over and sat with me, and made sure that I was at least just, like, not dying for the first couple of days.

It was just surreal.

I didn't like walking outside the house.

You know, I felt like everybody was looking like, "Well, here's the sex pest," you know, "Here's the rapist," "Here's the monster."

But after those initial days, I immediately got help that I needed.

-And how did you start?

-I got into recovery pretty quickly.

I had nowhere else to go.

It was the only way forward for me.

So I got into recovery, and it saved my life.

I filled that hole in me that I didn't know that I had, that I was filling with anger, that I was filling -- that I was unleashing on other people.

It's this idea of, there's something else out there that will make me better, but I can't get it.

And it's frustrating, and it's ang-- making me angry and other people have it, and how can they have it but I don't have it?

And if I only had that job or if I had that money or if I had that woman or if I had that car, these are all the things that would make me okay.

-But a lot of men are saying, "Well, we apologize.

Isn't that enough?

Why do we have to lose our jobs?

Our careers?

Our livelihood?

You also lost everything.

-Yeah, I have.

Yeah, I lost everything.

Um, what do I have to say to that?

Um, tough [no audio] You know?

I mean, tough [no audio] man, like, it's hard.

Life doesn't -- You don't just get to show up and say, "Hey, sorry, my bad," and then just keep going.

That's just not -- it's not how it works.

-How much throughout this whole process were you aware of Caroline's feelings, as opposed -- like, were you -- how much aware were you of her anger or of her own pain?

-I looked a little bit at some of the stuff that she said in the immediate aftermath.

Um, there was a lot of stuff that really hit me.

The idea that, like, I was guesting on my friend's podcast and that she had to hear me come on the podcast.

And there's somebody out there having a horrible reaction to this.

My existence is hurting somebody.

That's unreal.

And so I thought about that a lot, about the pain that she had to feel.

When I heard that -- when she said -- when she said that she had told me two years after that I had done this and I had ignored her, I mean, the pain that she had to feel, that's a double violation.

-Well, at one point, you got rehired at the junior level.

-It was a behind-the-scenes copywriting job.

My boss at the old place, we had been friends before I worked for him.

And he was in touch with me and knew that having a job and health insurance would be helpful.

"We're gonna give you a job behind the scenes.

You work from home.

You're not even gonna work with anybody else."

That was a mistake.

We didn't take into account how other people would see it or feel about it.

That was a huge mistake.

They -- They felt betrayed.

-So now you lost your other job.

-Yeah.

You know, my big fear had been -- had been realized, which was that my very existence was going to be offensive to people.

The heartbreaking thing is that I had not reached out to Caroline yet.

And I was itching to do it, but I wasn't ready.

I hadn't reached the spot.

The worst part of all of this was that, as this blew up again and people started asking her, "Did you know he was working?

Did you know that this was happening?

Did they ask you?"

She had never heard from me.

So, for me, it was like, "Does she think I don't care?"

And my r-- initial reaction was, "Got to contact her.

Got to let her know and make the amends now, even though I'm not on step nine.

I have to make the amends now."

Uh, thankfully, I was counseled not to.

And I'm glad I didn't, because if I had done it then, it would seem like I was trying to save my ass.

It would've been like, "Oh, hey, guys, don't fire me because, uh, I'm actually making amends.

Uh, sorry, sorry."

Uh, but that isn't -- so I d-- I didn't.

I d-- I-I had to let go.

I had to surrender to the moment and go, "Okay, I'm gonna trust the process."

-Did you have to forgive yourself first before you asked for forgiveness from Caroline?

-Yeah, I mean [Sighs] forgiveness is not letting you off the hook, right?

Forgiveness, especially of yourself, is not saying, "Oh, well, don't worry about it."

What it's saying is, "You did it, it's not -- it does not have to define who you are."

It took me, you know, I mean, like, more than a year to even get to the point where I could start to even understand that.

And again, I just -- to say -- to even say out loud, "I forgive myself," sounds like I'm going, "Well, hey, no harm, no foul."

But lots of harm, plenty of foul.

So, the thing I like to say is, like, um, it's my fault that I did something.

But it's not my fault that it's my fault.

There is conditioning and culturation and socialization and all these things that led up to me making a bad decision.

But I made the bad decision.

So, that's where I was able to find forgiveness for myself, to accept, to own, to recognize the harm that I had done, without -- without burning myself...up.

And then, once I finally hit that point, "I think I'm ready, I think I'm ready," and then, finally, when I made the phone call to her -- -The phone call, just so we're clear, a couple of weeks ago?

-Yes.

The only thing scarier than that phone call was coming here today.

Um, and, uh -- and both of those things are surrendering myself to the process.

I wrote her an e-mail, and I said, um, "You know, I've gotten sober.

I'm working these steps.

I've come to the point now where I'm ready, I want to make amends to people I've hurt.

Can I call you?

If that's too much, can I e-mail you?"

And 24 hours later, she replied.

I open that e-mail and the first sentence was, "This must've been really hard for you to do."

And that was, like, stunning.

Um...it was stunning.

I mean, like, to someone who had hurt you so badly -- um, who, it could be argued, it's a selfish move to reach out and say, "I'm trying to get my life together.

Will you help me get my life together?"

To your first reaction to that to be, "This must be so hard for you," that's -- that's incredible.

♪♪ -Tell me about your processing.

What was that turning point?

-I realized that if I really wanted to stop acting from this place of rage, where that almost seemed like it was consuming my entire identity at some point, I had to figure out something different to do.

And, for me, the anger has always been kind of this thin veneer -- thin but very volatile veneer over a deep well of pain.

And I began studying Buddhist philosophy and practice in earnest.

And one of the ideas that I really gravitated towards was this idea that we practice emotions like instruments.

And I was like, "Well, that's definitely me and anger.

I'm on my way to becoming really good at the instrument of anger and finding more and more places to play it.

So the idea being instead of saying, "Anger is bad, or negativity is bad, or just stop -- just think happy thoughts" -- really what the Buddhist framework was asking me to do was, um, to shift my emphasis towards creating the causes and conditions of compassion.

-And you talked about compassion.

And I'm gonna bring the word forgiveness, because one journalist, in writing about your case... -Mm-hmm.

-...said, "I am sick of women having s-- to constantly take the route of forgiveness as if we owe it to people who treat us like dirt."

-Right.

-You know, 'cause it's, like, let's just stay in the anger and let's just not go to the pa-- you know, the compassion.

-Right.

-What are your response to that?

Because women do feel angry.

-Yeah.

-I mean, you felt it.

I felt it.

All of us felt it in our lives, right?

So how do we turn it?

And why do we need to turn it?

Why do we need to go to compassion and forgiveness?

-Right.

Well, I think part of the problem is when compassion and forgiveness becomes a demand of the person who has suffered from, um, some kind of violation like this.

When it's made an expectation, I think that is a problem.

Demanding that of people who, um, aren't there yet or aren't going to be there, um, I think places this really undue pressure on, um, on the people who have suffered.

-Did you ever get to a stage of forgiveness, or not?

-Yes.

-'Cause it's so hard to forgive people who have hurt you personally.

-Yeah.

-I feel like it's much easier to talk about forgiveness, "Oh, let's forgive this."

-Right.

-But it's hard.

-Yeah, and I feel like I've been kind of talking around this because it is hard to say, 'cause it does feel like a very intimate thing.

But, yeah, I forgave Devin.

Um, yeah.

I've -- I've -- I have forgiven him.

And I know from personal experience that a person who is full of shame and self-hatred is only going to hurt more people.

So, if I could help him see that I supported him in his path, um, that that could help break this cycle.

That that could be part of what we talk about when we talk about restorative justice.

-Did you forgive him for him, or did you forgive him for you?

-It was -- it was more for me.

I couldn't hold on to what felt like, again, it's that poison in the body, anymore.

And that is -- I really want to emphasize not making people feel like this is something that they must do.

That whatever, uh, your particular situation is, um, your path is gonna necessarily be different, um, because of so many factors.

-And let us remember, you've experienced this for more than 10 years.

-Right.

-So it took you a long time to get to this point.

-Oh, yeah.

-And -- And the message for other victims who may just be aware of their experience, "Take your time."

I mean, that's what I tell people.

-Absolutely.

-"Take your time in your pain."

-Absolutely.

-And you eventually have to get to the point where you may want to decide the compassionate route for yourself.

-Right.

I think we emphasize the compassion for, "Oh, she was so compassionate towards, you know, this person who did something hurtful to her."

But that also was a form of self-compassion, that that, if, you know, I'm applying this, um, uh, sense of alleviation of suffering for the situation, that has to start with me.

I have to start seeking my own healing first.

It has to start there.

-So, he e-mailed you, I believe, or wrote you a letter.

-Right.

He wrote just a brief e-mail about wanting to make amends.

Um, and, you know, I know that's part of the recovery process.

And I wanted to -- I-I had to take a deep breath.

And we talked.

And he -- I f-- it felt important that he was apologizing.

But he was also telling me what he was apologizing for.

It didn't just feel like trying to sweep it under the carpet, to me.

Just to bring restorative justice back into it, that's the restoration, is restoring those relationships.

And that's what I told Devin.

I said, "I'm so glad that you've apologized to me, and I accept your apology.

But you have work to do in your community, because that -- those are the relationships, those people who felt hurt that you had been hired back in secret."

That's the r-- that's, to me, the real work that he has to do.

-You had told a journalist once, though, that, "I really hope this can be a moment of self-interrogation for all of us, myself included..." -Mm-hmm.

-"...about the ways we might use positions of power to silence people, and the ways we all turn away from things that might seem a little too complicated to deal with."

-So, for me, that means, if part of what makes me so angry about this is that people didn't listen to me, or people minimized my story, really asking myself where are the places in my life where I don't listen to somebody else and I minimize them.

-Okay, now you're ready to make that phone call.

-I said what I had to say.

I s-- I-I -- I owned it, uh, you know?

I -- You know, I-I owned it as honestly as I could.

I said, "I believe you.

I don't remember that night.

But I accept personal responsibility for it 100%.

And I am so sorry.

I can't imagine the pain that I caused you and the hurt that you've had all these years.

And I'm so sorry.

I'm here to listen right now to whatever you want to say to me.

And however I can make amends to you, please let me know."

And I had been told by a lawyer not to do this.

The lawyer was, like, "There's nothing good that's gonna come out of this."

The lawyer was wrong.

The lawyer might've been legally correct, but the lawyer was spiritually incorrect.

I mean, like, so, at the end of the day, what came out of this was her accepting my amends on the phone, and her talking about -- about restorative justice, um, and about the idea of repair, um, which had been -- which was very parallel to a lot of the journey that I had been on for the last, I don't know, 15 months.

It was a s-- It was a stunning moment again.

When she said, "I accept your amends," it was surreal, you know?

And the thing about grace is that you don't deserve it.

And that's what makes it special.

And I don't deserve to be forgiven, but she forg-- I mean, at least on the phone, forgave me and accepted my amends anyway.

And she didn't have to and she -- I don't deserve it.

-Were you attached to what she was gonna answer?

What if she did not accept it?

-I was aware of all of the worst-case scenarios.

I'm here today.

I do not know what will happen from this.

And it is quite plausible that the response to this will not be positive.

It's quite plausible.

But I can't be worried about the outcome.

All I can be worried about is the work.

And the work is repair.

The work is restoration.

The work is trying to do something useful that can make a little bit of a difference in the world.

Um, but what that difference is, I can't worry about it.

-Next week, Tweet us at #MeTooOnPBS.

♪♪ ♪♪ -To learn more about this program, please visit PBS.org/metoonowwhat.

This episode of "Me Too, Now What?"

is available for download on iTunes.

Other episodes in the series are also available.

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