Utah author Richard Paul Evans, under fire for allegations that he sexually harassed women at Salt Lake Comic Con, added fuel to his public-relations fire when he compared the plight of white men in America to “Jews in Nazi Germany.”
In an interview that aired Tuesday on KUTV-Channel 2, Evans told reporter Chris Jones that “there is a war on men, and that men — white men in particular — are under attack, oppressed by a changing culture, victims of an extremist feminist agenda.”
Evans did not respond to a Wednesday request for comment from The Salt Lake Tribune.
Evans on Wednesday issued an apology “for such a stupid comparison” in a Facebook post. He added that “I was referring to the Pre-Holocaust phase when the Jewish people were being unjustly blamed for everything that was wrong in society.”
Evans has been accused of acting inappropriately toward a woman after a panel discussion during the September 2017 Salt Lake Comic Con, now called FanX. A second woman alleges a similar incident at the 2013 convention. FanX officials have announced that Evans, who denies the allegations, will not be attending its next pop-culture convention, Sept. 6-8 at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
The author of “The Christmas Box,” the “Michael Vey” series and many other books seemed to suggest that the #MeToo movement has gone too far.
“These trends tend to swing too far the other way where innocent men are being caught up in, and we’re in a culture where it’s a war on men,” he told KUTV.
“There are books written that say, again, that men should be taken out, that they should account for no more than 10 percent of the population. Well, that makes men feel like Jews in Nazi Germany.”
Evans’ latest comments come amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment involving FanX. Two allegations involve Evans — one woman alleged he touched and kissed her without her permission. “I had never met him before. ... but he made me very uncomfortable and even said, ‘You’re so pretty’ after he touched me, as though he couldn’t help himself.”
A second woman told The Tribune that at the 2013 Salt Lake Comic Con Evans “wouldn’t stop coming over and rubbing my arm. It made me really uncomfortable.”
Evans told The Tribune he is “repulsed” by the accusations, adding that, in the 2017 incident, the woman misinterpreted his friendliness. He denied any knowledge of the 2013 incident, which he called “bizarre” and classified as “collusion”
His assistant, Diane Glad — who said she is always with Evans when he makes public appearance like those at FanX/Salt Lake Comic Con — disputed the woman’s account, adding that Evans has never faced any sort of complaint “outside of this group of women at Utah Comic Con.”
A spokeswoman for Evans’ publisher, Simon & Schuster, said Wednesday the company declined to comment on the author’s comments or the accusations against him.
