Bill Murray has revealed that he’s still bothered by an on-set kiss that sparked a sexual misconduct allegation in 2022.
The actor recently told The New York Times that he doesn’t “go too many days or weeks without thinking” about what happened while shooting “Being Mortal,” which was set to be Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut before production was suspended after a complaint about Murray’s behavior.
“I tried to make peace. I thought I was trying to make peace. I ended up being, to my mind, barbecued,” said Murray, who appeared to confirm a previous report that he kissed a crew member on the mouth while they wore face masks.
He added that he isn’t sure what “prompted” him to kiss the crew member, who was reportedly “much younger” than him.
“It’s something that I had done to someone else before, and I thought it was funny, and every time it happened, it was funny,” Murray told the Times.
“I was wearing a mask, and I gave her a kiss, and she was wearing a mask. It wasn’t like I touched her, but it was just, I gave her a kiss through a mask. And she wasn’t a stranger,” he said.
Murray, in a statement at the time, said he and the crew member were “talking and trying to make peace with each other.”
Ansari has reportedly turned his attention to his upcoming film “Good Fortune,” which is set to be released later this year, before he returns to “Being Mortal.”
Roy Rochlin via Getty Images
Murray told the Times that the kiss “still bothers” him because the film was “stopped by the human rights or ‘H & R’ of the Disney corporation.”
“It turned out there were pre-existing conditions and all this kind of stuff. I’m like, what? How was anyone supposed to know anything like that? There was no conversation, there was nothing. There was no peacemaking, nothing,” said Murray, adding that the incident went into “this arbitration.”
He continued: “If anyone ever suggests you go to arbitration: Don’t do it. Never ever do it. Because you think it’s justice, and it isn’t.”
When asked if he “learned something” from the experience, Murray said, “I think so. You can teach an old dog new tricks. But it was a great disappointment, because I thought I knew someone, and I did not.”
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“I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. To me it’s still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on. It’s still stupid. It’s all it was.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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