Reserve judgement. There was no indication that it wasn’t a joke gone wrong, either. I’m reminded about how people jumped the gun in the Duke lacrosse and Virginia fraternity rape accusations. Last year you had the two girls at SUNY-Albany claim they were assaulted on a bus due to their race, and then it turned out to be false.
Once this became public, he had to say that for public consumption.
What’s changed is that people have become hypersensitive, and everything is over-interpreted to the extreme. Kids get suspended from school for pointing their hand like it’s a gun. I hate using the term “snowflake”, but that’s what lots of people have become.