When ‘sorry’ isn’t enough: Lars Sullivan must do better

Eagle-eyed wrestling fans may have noticed that former NXT superstar turned main roster monster Lars Sullivan is at the center of a pretty major internet storm right now thanks to what might charitably be called ‘ill-advised’ posts on a bodybuilding forum.

The posts date back to the early 2010’s – prior to Lars’ WWE tenure – but there are a lot of them. And, honestly, they are pretty bad. (Click with care. Lars’, uh, credentials include rape apology, racism, sexism and derision of mental health issues, among other things.)

We’re not talking about a controversial tweet sent in a moment of madness, or a quote taken out of context; this is a sustained and consistent picture of a man with bigoted opinions on a range of issues. Lars was a grown man when he posted these; they were not the comments of a dumb teenager who has spent too much time on 4chan.

Lars Sullivan has since issued an apology for these posts:

"“There is no excuse for the inappropriate remarks that I made years ago. They do not reflect my personal beliefs nor who I am today, and I apologize to anyone I offended.”"

There are a few problems with this apology, to say the least. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that it reads like it was run through an automated apology generator, there’s something astonishingly insincere about the words Lars has chosen. And when it comes to apologizing for a sustained record of bigoted and offensive remarks, words really do matter.

There will doubtless be those who write off criticism of Lars’ apology as an unwillingness to accept his contrition – that people would have rejected anything he said, however elegantly worded it might have been. Perhaps this is true of some corners of the internet – though I would politely note that, particularly for people who belong to the demographics slandered by Lars, no one owes anyone else forgiveness.

There are solid grounds to be suspicious of the veracity of Lars’ apology. The first issue is that Lars’ comments have actually been brought to light before – they were first reported on in November 2018 by various outlets.

If Lars was legitimately contrite about the (many) inappropriate things he’d said, one would have thought that he might have addressed them when they first made the news. Sweeping the comments under the rug in the hope that they would not come back to bite him is not a good look; it implies that Lars was more concerned about keeping his reputation intact than actually owning his problematic history and making amends for it.

Had Lars Sullivan taken it upon himself to apologize at that time, it might have lent some credibility to the idea that he’s actually a changed man. But in this context, his recent apology looks rather more like an attempt to salvage his reputation now that he cannot plausibly deny his behavior rather than a sincere expression of regret.

It is worth noting that his colleagues have been aware of his opinions, and appear skeptical of his changed ways.

The second issue is that Lars’ recent behavior – that is, prior to this most recent revelation – is not consistent with a man who cares about how his words affect other people. In fact, it’s remarkably congruent with the kind of statement he frequently posted on the bodybuilding forum. See, for example, this hastily deleted tweet, which gives a definitive impression of a man who enjoys being controversial for controversy’s sake:

And yes, yes, “heel work”, that old chestnut. Except that his swift and subsequent deletion of the tweet is again inconsistent with the notion of a man willfully working his audience. If it’s a work, why delete it?

Lars has had no problem with tweeting ‘controversial’ things in the past. A tweet loaded with alt-right dog-whistle phrasing does not sit comfortably alongside his assertion that he’s a changed man.

The biggest problem is, though, that it’s simply not a very good apology. It starts off well enough – there is indeed no excuse. But it quickly starts to fall apart.

The thing is, an apology is not about ‘you’, the person apologizing. Nobody is really interested in whether you are the same person now as you were five years ago; seeking absolution on the basis that you have ‘changed’ should not be the focus of an apology in the first instance. That comes later.

The old adage ‘show, don’t tell’ comes to mind; if Lars wants to prove he’s changed, the burden of proof is on him to demonstrate this. Simply assuring us he’s a good man now doesn’t cut it.

But perhaps the worst part is the stunning non-apology that is ‘I apologize to anyone I offended’. I say non-apology because an actual apology involves taking ownership of and responsibility for your actions.

That means apologizing for what you did, not because people were offended. It means understanding and accepting that racist, ableist, homophobic, misogynistic statements are wrong because their content is wrong, not because someone might someday read those statements and find them upsetting.

When a person says ‘I’m sorry you were offended’, what they effectively mean is ‘I’m sorry for your feelings’, not ‘I’m sorry for the terrible things I said’. What they mean, really, is ‘I’m sorry I got caught’.

A good apology means you must hold yourself responsible for the dumb things you said and/or did. It is incumbent on the person in question to apologize specifically for those dumb things: for holding bigoted views and making bigoted statements, not for ‘offending’ people.

What Lars fails to acknowledge is that nobody would have been offended at all had he not said racist, ableist, homophobic, misogynistic things in the first place. You have to be actually sorry for what you actually did. And that, unfortunately, does not come through in Lars’ statement.

To be clear: I believe in second chances. I believe that someone who has expressed a genuine wish to do better should be given the opportunity to do so. (Though, as I have noted previously, it is nobody’s obligation to forgive a person who has made bigoted statements about their demographic.) But the caveat here is that they must earn that second chance.

Lars Sullivan has had the opportunity to express his contrition and has given only the most basic ‘PR template’ of apologies. A proper apology would demonstrate some cognition of what he has done wrong (i.e. being a bigot, not ‘offending’ people). It would express a desire to become a better person, not assure us all that he already is one – where is his proof?

Most importantly, it would take ownership of his behavior – not place the onus on the people reacting to it.

What with the ongoing Hogan debacle, WWE have made it abundantly clear that they’re not overly troubled by bigoted comments, as long as those who made them make appropriately apologetic-sounding noises.

Their deafening silence thus far on the Lars Sullivan issue suggests they are unlikely to break character unless the negative publicity becomes a Hogan-level sewage tsunami. (And hell, even that ended up only a temporary slap on the wrist.)

The thing is, heads don’t necessarily need to roll over this. If Lars is willing to demonstrate true contrition – and more importantly, true learning from his mistakes – it’s not unreasonable that he should be given that much-prized second chance.

Unfortunately for Lars Sullivan, it’s starting to look like he might have left it too little, too late.