Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker Won’t Apologize as His Accuser’s Sister Calls The Birth of a Nation “Sinister” and “Perverse”

Video of Parker’s unapologetic 60 Minutes interview emerges as a scorching new column calls him out.
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By Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic/Getty Images.

In the past few weeks leading up to the release of The Birth of a Nation, director and star Nate Parker has remained quiet about the rape charges he was acquitted of in 2001. As the story overtook any conversation about the film itself, Parker declined to engage, saying at the Toronto International Film Festival that he didn’t want his personal life to “hijack” the film’s press conference. But as his co-star Gabrielle Union has kept the conversation very much alive, Parker sat down to discuss the 17-year-old case in a frank conversation with Anderson Cooper that will air on this Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes. Video of the interview became available Thursday, the same day Parker’s accuser’s sister penned an emotional guest column for Variety.

“I was falsely accused . . . I went to court . . . I was vindicated. I feel terrible that this woman isn’t here . . . her family had to deal with that, but as I sit here, an apology is—no,” Parker said bluntly, in response to Cooper’s question about whether he might apologize for the incident. This is a sharper response than the more contrite-seeming interviews Parker gave in August.

But Parker does admit that when he found out, along with the rest of the world, that his accuser had committed suicide in 2012, he was “devastated.” He found the news “shocking,” and “couldn’t believe it” after hearing it.

Parker also tells Cooper that what he did was morally wrong. He phrases that through the lens of his faith, though, so it’s unclear if he’s referring to the “moral wrong” of any pre-marital sex. As Parker says, “As a Christian man . . . just being in that situation, yeah, sure. I am 36 years old right now. My faith is very important to me, so looking back through that lens . . . it’s not the lens I had when I was 19 years old.”

Echoing Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Parker adds that The Birth of a Nation is more important that his part in it. “I think that Nat Turner, as a hero, what he did in history, is bigger than me. I think it’s bigger than all of us.”

But Sharon Loeffler, sister of the woman who accused both Parker and The Birth of a Nation co-screenwriter Jean Celestin of rape in 1999, is unable to extricate the film from her sister’s fate. “In the years that followed, Nate Parker became a well-known actor. It tormented my sister to see him thrive while she was still struggling,” Loeffler writes. “In 2012, she committed suicide. It took me more than two years to not cry uncontrollably every day over her loss.”

Referencing appearances like the one on 60 Minutes, Loeffler says, “I can only imagine the pain she would be experiencing now to see Nate Parker promoting his new movie, The Birth of a Nation, which he wrote with Celestin. As her sister, the thing that pains me most of all is that in retelling the story of the Nat Turner slave revolt, they invented a rape scene. The rape of Turner’s wife is used as a reason to justify Turner’s rebellion.”

Calling for Fox Searchlight to either add a disclaimer or remove the scene altogether from the film, Loeffler calls Celestin and Parker’s work “creepy and perverse” and objects to Parker “portray[ing] himself as a hero avenging that rape.” She considers the invented rape “self-serving, sinister and . . . a cruel insult to my sister’s memory.”

And Loeffler also pushes back on Gabrielle Union, who has used the scandal around Parker to write and speak openly about her own history with sexual assault. “She argues that the film should be used as an opportunity to reflect on sexual violence,” Loeffler writers. “That would allow my sister to be exploited all over again, and it sickens me. I am extremely disappointed in anyone who would use my sister’s story to advance their own fame and fortune.”

You can read Loeffler’s entire column here. Nate Parker’s 60 Minutes interview will air in full October 2 on CBS.