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Cuba Gooding Jr. sat down for an interview for the first time since pleading guilty to one-count of forcible touching.
In an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Gooding, 54, insisted he was ‘100% changed’ since admitting to the charge.
‘It’s funny too because I don’t want this to stop me connecting with my fans,’ he added. ‘I don’t want this to stop me connecting with the gregarious behavior in terms of the positive energy that I have. I’m ten times more aware of what is going on around me and I just use that as my focus.’
‘100% changed’: Cuba Gooding Jr. sat down for an interview for the first time since pleading guilty to one-count of forcible touching
Piers also mentioned how his difficult past could not serve as an excuse for his behavior.
‘The answer to that is you have to live in your truth, and I know in my truth, I didn’t mean to to disrespect anyone,’ Cuba responded before being cut off by Piers, who expressed his displeasure with the term ‘my truth.’
‘Let’s take the word “my” out. There’s video footage of the interactions with these women that showed the truth of what happened,’ Gooding Jr. continued.
‘And it’s funny, so I had so many people come up to me in the street and say, “I support you, I saw the video”… but the one thing that I found that really hit me, and I said, “Okay now it’s time for me to mention this, to talk about it.”
Changed individual: In an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored , Gooding insisted he was ‘100% changed’ since admitting to the charges
Connecting: ‘It’s funny too because I don’t want this to stop me connecting with my fans,’ Gooding said
‘Basically, I started this career loved, and people were all like, “Oh his energy!” Nothing’s changed with me! But I do have to address it for what you just said, about “my.” It’s not my truth. It is the truth.’
Last month Gooding Jr. returned to court in Manhattan to face the woman he groped in a nightclub in 2019 as she read a victim impact statement to the court.
Gooding Jr. previously pleaded guilty to one-count of forcible touching. The charge was in relation to a 2018 incident with a waitress at TAO in New York City. That woman was not in court on Thursday but another victim, Kelsey Harbert, was.
On camera: ‘There’s video footage of the interactions with these women that showed the truth of what happened,’ Gooding Jr. admitted
Cuba returned to court in Manhattan last month to face the woman he groped in a nightclub in 2019 as she read a victim impact statement to the court
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Kelsey was the woman whose breast he fondled at the Magic Hour Rooftop in New York City in 2019.
He was never charged over that incident – a decision that outraged Harbert, who told reporters on Thursday that she was robbed of justice.
The case is all but closed but the parties returned to court to allow Harbert to read her victim impact statement.
Kelsey Harbert with her attorney Gloria Allred. She said that he escaped justice
After she reported the incident to police, Gooding Jr. was accused of a string of other offenses in both L.A. and New York that included forcible kissing and touching on waitresses.
He has always denied wrongdoing, insisting that any acts were consensual, but apologized for making women feel ‘uncomfortable’.
The plea deal was reached in April this year.
If he complies with its terms, the charge will be reduced to a violation and his criminal record will be wiped clean.
Gooding Jr. appears in New York Criminal Court for his sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of forcibly touching a woman at a New York nightclub in 2019
Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty to one count of forcible touching for the 2018 incident. The other charges were dropped
Gooding Jr., 54, will now have his criminal record scrubbed
Harbert says it is too soft an agreement for Gooding Jr.
Gooding Jr had been facing six groping charges over three alleged incidents which occurred in 2018 and 2019.
One of the women alleged Gooding pinched her buttocks.
Another said he squeezed her breast at the Magic Hour rooftop in New York City in June last year.
One woman alleged that he raped her in 2013 in a hotel room. He has not been charged over that claim.
