You’d have to have been under the heaviest of rocks to have not heard or read the name “Christian Keyes” in the last week and a half.
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Just in case, a quick primer: Keyes is an actor, model and author who wrote the novels that were adapted into the BET+ show “All the Queen’s Men,” which he also wrote and co-starred. On Dec. 16, Keyes uploaded an hour-plus-long video on his experiences in Hollywood to Instagram.
In that video, Keyes spoke of being a victim of years of sexual harassment at the hands of a “very powerful man” who had several “young Black men” on his payroll and who offered him a six-figure bribe to keep his mouth closed. He claims to have recorded audio of his harasser on a pen recorder.
His video provoked an initial firestorm of support and immediate speculation that the powerful man in question is Tyler Perry, considering the years-long curiosity about his sexuality and the fact that Tyler Perry Studios produced “All the Queen’s Men.” After a few days, folks set their sights on Bishop T.D. Jakes, who is managing a concurrent controversy involving sex parties with men at Diddy’s crib.
Black social media is doing what it does: Folks are playing armchair sleuth and dropping names that aren’t Perry or Jakes in heavily shared and retweeted posts. However, it’s been 10 days since Keyes posted his video, and he has yet to reveal the name of his alleged abuser.
The tide of support started turning against Keyes a few days after his video, when he responded in the comments of an Instagram post about him insisting he hasn’t cleared anyone’s name and that it would “break people’s hearts” if they learned the identity of his alleged abuser.
My own supported started to wane when Keyes tweeted that folks have mentioned his alleged attacker’s name and that he’s trying to “find the strength to finish this race.”
What’s the race, though? Where are we all going?
I believe Keyes experienced what he said he did, and I haven’t encountered many folks who believe otherwise. I also understand the dynamics of sexual assault survivors and why they’re often reticent to step forward…especially if their attacker is someone with power.
But Keyes is damaging his credibility by letting the issue linger with no one to hold accountable. Folks’ animus toward him is mounting in tweets and comment sections all over social media. It was all good just a week ago.
By withholding the identity of his harasser, Keyes is allowing the world to speculate on the identity of several other men who are innocent of what he’s alleging. It’s unethical to sit idly by watching the reputations of other prominent men get besmirched on the internet while he drags this thing out. Even if he won’t say who it is, he should have the decency to say who it isn’t.
Harsh though it may sound, the suggestion that Keyes is seeking a hush-hush bag in the vein of Cassie and Diddy doesn’t seem entirely far-fetched. But there’s no comparison: Cassie filed a federal lawsuit directly naming Diddy with tons of wildly specific details. Keyes, in contrast, is carpet-bombing us with vagueness designed to drag out conjecture as he likely revels in the attention.
The whole affair feels like the first couple of weeks of the Jussie Smollett hoax, when he rode that “Good Morning America,” “I’m the gay Tupac” wave until it ran him into a brick wall.
If Keyes names his abuser, he could be the catalyst of a new level of accountability in Black Hollywood. If he never said anything at all about it to anyone outside of his therapist or loved ones, it would be entirely understandable. But this in-between business is not the move.
In the words of the great Marlo Stanfield, “Do it or don’t, but I got someplace to be.”
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