Last week, Yoav Eliassi, better known as "The Shadow," managed to surprise many.
The man who is used to sending quarrelsome political posts to his million followers on social media, has released to the world an unusual post, in which he apologizes for the harassment he has committed in the past against women.
"I feel like vomiting from Yoav's behavior of yesteryear! As a father to Thia today, if someone had treated my daughter the way I treated some of the girls, I would have left him without teeth in his mouth. I did things that were once considered normal, and today would not be accepted," he wrote , among the rest.
"Today I am beating for sin. Aware and disgusted by who I was, and doing everything to mend, for the future of my daughter. And when I see all the stories of rape and harassment of the stars of Israel (and the world), I understand exactly where it came from."
This week, in the first extensive interview since the post, which in the atmosphere of the period was held out of the isolation in which he resides after falling ill in Corona, he explains what made him put himself into an issue that every celebrity just runs away from.
"The idea for this post came up after I saw the conduct of celebrities in all the recent harassment stories. Gal Ohovsky, the owner of the forum club Yossi Schwartz, and Assi Ezer. In one month there were full complaints about full celebrities. I watched them all, and none of them came and said "Sorry." They found every excuse and every explanation, but not the word "sorry." And that's what made me sit down to write and tell the whole truth.
"I'm not a bad or violent or aggressive person, and in life I will never raise a hand against a woman. I have never forced myself on someone, but I have made a mistake in my life. I have hurt girls in the mind. It does not have to be sexual abuse, but today I understand words have power.
"It's not that today I'm perfect, holy, innocent or righteous. I'm not in those areas and not close to it at all. But I do know I was wrong and hit on sin, because it hurts me. True, more than a decade has passed, but I want to apologize again to every girl "I've behaved inappropriately towards her ever since."
Did you consult with anyone before publishing the post?
"I read it to my friend, and he said to me, 'You're not normal. You're not posting this. What the fuck are you doing? "You can't live your whole life like this, in a sense of fear, and not talk, because maybe someone will complain about something I did 20 years ago. 'I'm used to being looked for, but for me the truth must be told."
With Lynn, if your children, did you consult?
"Yes, and she also objected. She claimed it was too exposed and extreme. I told her, 'Very well, that's exactly what I wanted,' and at that moment I published."
Weren't you afraid of women popping up claiming you sexually assaulted them?
"There is no man who is not afraid of it. Nowadays it is better to be a crook and a thief than a sexual attacker. If you think I slept quietly after this post, you are wrong. It did me no good. People like to see celebrities like me crash."
The full interview with the shadow will be published this weekend in the "Shishvat" supplement of "Israel Today"
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