A former newspaper reporter said Friday that she was the woman who published the editorial in 2000 that detailed allegations that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau groped her at a music festival 18 years ago.
However, Rose Knight says she doesn’t want to pursue the matter any further or be involved in any debates if it should continue.
“The debate, if it continues, will continue without my involvement,” Knight said in a statement obtained by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News.
Knight also claimed that Trudeau apologized for the incident the day after.
However, Trudeau said last Sunday that he doesn’t recall “any negative interactions that day at all,” and said he only apologized because he realized Knight experienced his actions differently than his original intentions.
“I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way. But I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently and this is part of the reflections that we have to go through,” Trudeau said Thursday.
An unsigned editorial titled “Open Eyes” from 2000 detailing the experience resurfaced last month after Canadian political commentator Warren Kinsella tweeted a picture of the editorial with the #MeToo hashtag.
Knight confirmed Friday she wrote the editorial.
“I issue this statement reluctantly, in response to mounting media pressure to confirm that I was the reporter who was the subject of the Open Eyes editorial, published in the Creston Valley Advance in August of 2000,” Knight said in her statement.
