“The Universe has a way of taking care of the good people, you know what I mean?“  
– Taraji P. Henson to Ryan Seacrest on the Oscars red carpet.  Was it a slam to Seacrest or a message of support? 
I thought she was being sweet, but people online think otherwise.

In general, I believe people are innocent until proven guilty.  Conversely, there are certain things I believe for no particular reason, and you wouldn’t be able to convince me otherwise even with incontrovertible facts.  That’s my long way of saying with a fair amount of certainty that there is no truth to these allegations against Ryan Seacrest.  For those of you who don’t know, Suzie Hardy was Seacrest’s personal stylist at E! from 2007 to 2013.  She says during those years, she endured numerous incidents of sexual harassment – and, according to her statement, when human resources at E! questioned her (they came to her – she did not go to them), she was promptly fired.  Once, when she was on the ground tying Ryan’s shoes – and let the absurdity of that statement sink in – Ryan allegedly pushed Suzie’s face into his crotch.  In an even more lurid encounter, Suzie claims that when Ryan was clad in only underwear, he got so aroused looking at her, he had a visible erection.  I’m not sure which is more absurd – that Ryan’s erection is EVER visible, or that it could be caused by a woman!

How this story affected the Oscars is quite interesting.  For the first time ever, the bulk of E!’s red carpet interviews were pre-taped.  Why?  To avoid any embarrassing comments going out on live TV.  So what basically happened is the wranglers would grab a star to talk to Ryan.  Before they came over, he’d throw it over to Giuliana Rancic, who was on the roof across the street.  Ryan would do the interview.  If it went well, Giuliana would say, “Let’s go back to Ryan, who is talking to Christopher Plummer” – perhaps a bad example, because I’m not sure Chris knew who Ryan was.  Then E! would roll in the Plummer interview as if it were live.  Given the circumstances, we’re pleased to hear that Giuliana voiced her objection over saying things like, “Unexpected moments happen on the red carpet, and you will see them live only on E!”.  But, say it she did.  The bottom line is that E!’s pre-show featured very few major stars talking to Ryan – in fact, all five Best Actress nominees simply demurred.