“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin has revealed that “Wicked” star and sorority sister Cynthia Erivo called her after she made her controversial comments about the Cornell sexual assault case last week, with the Oscar nominee purportedly telling Hostin to “lead with empathy.”
Last week, Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, told fans of “The View” that she felt it was “important to understand why the DA did not bring a case in 2024” in regards to the ongoing Cornell sexual assault controversy. The victim in the incident, identified only as “Jane Doe,” first reported an alleged sexual assault to Cornell two years ago. This year, she filed a lawsuit against the university, as well as seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity and other parties.
A number of the men accused in the alleged gang rape case have denied any wrongdoing. While speaking on the subject last week, Hostin said Doe’s voluntary alcohol and drug usage in the incident made it difficult for the DA to raise her case in New York.
“She allowed other boys and consented to other boys snorting ketamine off of her body, and under New York law, voluntary intoxication or drug use that merely impairs judgment does not legally constitute an inability to consent to sexual activity,” Hostin said. “That means if you voluntarily ingest drugs, voluntarily take alcohol, you can agree to have threesomes — which, in her statement, she agreed to have two separate threesomes.”
“The problem is the New York law,” Hostin clarified in a subsequent “View” episode, adding that she “would have prosecuted this case like I prosecuted a lot of sex crimes.”
During Monday’s episode of the “‘Behind the Table” podcast, Hostin explained her comments and revealed the advice that Erivo gave her, in the wake of the immense backlash to her initial comments.
“I see things, when it comes to the law, sort of black-and-white. I apply the facts as I know them to the law,” Hostin said. “It’s my job, in a sense, on this panel. When I first talked about this topic on the panel, I led with the law. Because everyone else had spoken emotionally about it.”
“I needed, I felt, to bring us back to this New York law, which is really terrible and needs to be changed,” she explained. “In the second segment, I was comfortable enough after I’d spoken to the law, to speak about the moral issue, because the morality of what happened is very different from the legality of what happened.”
In response to her comments, Erivo apparently called Hostin from Paris.
“She called me and said, ‘Sis, I know you and I know your heart and your life’s work has been about protecting women and children. But, the clip that I saw doesn’t reflect who you are,’” Hostin recalled. “She then said, ‘I’m a blunt person and you are a blunt person.’ That’s why we get along so well, because we get the BS out when we talk to each other. She said she’s had to learn to give people her opinion in a way that they can receive it rather than just be blunt.”
“Instead of leading with the law, I need to lead with empathy so that people can receive the message about the law,” Erivo advised Hostin. The “View” co-host then noted, “That’s why the next time we talked about it, I led with that so that people would be able to receive the facts that, in New York, if you’re voluntarily intoxicated you’d have to be completely passed out, affirmatively say no, or you would have to be drugged involuntarily to prove sexual assault.”
“I was accused of defending these young men, and victim-shaming, which is something I would never do since I spent the majority of my career prosecuting sex crimes,” Hostin added. “I was kind of fascinated by the way people received the information that I gave, which was ultimately the law in New York must be changed because the bar is so very high in New York once someone is voluntarily intoxicated to prove sexual assault.”
“The burden becomes so high,” Hostin concluded. “It’s almost impossible to prove sexual assault.”
