In a recent interview with her former SNL castmate Will Forte, the actress and comedian shared her memories of being distracted during sexual harassment training at work.
“Do you remember that we sat next to each other at the read-through table?” Poehler asked Forte on an episode of her Good Hang podcast. “Do you remember when we had the guy come for the sexual harassment?”
“I certainly do,” Forte responded.
“Do you remember what we were doing during it?” Poehler asked, smiling.
Forte gave his best guess. “I think it was like drawing pictures of dicks or something,” the Last Man on Earth star said.
Poehler confirmed Forte’s suspicion. “Yes,” she said. “Look, we were consensually and appropriately — just with each other, I believe — drawing pictures of penises and giving them back and forth to each other.”
Dirty jokes between friends might not sound like a big deal — but unfortunately, the gag inadvertently moved beyond the duo’s circle of trust.
“I accidentally handed that sheet of paper to the very nice man who had just done the entire seminar because I thought it was the sign-in sheet,” Poehler admitted. “Do you know this part?”
Forte said he wasn’t aware of Poehler’s gaffe.
“I handed it, and he was like, ‘What’s this?'” Poehler explained. “And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the wrong — sir, that’s the wrong paper.'”
Poehler’s unfortunate slip-up might make it sound like she doesn’t take workplace safety seriously, but she has made significant efforts to combat sexual harassment.
In 2018, Poehler attended a One Fair Wage event in New York City to advocate for better workplace protections for workers in the restaurant industry, and discussed her own mistreatment when she worked as a server.
“I was a white woman who had certain privileges allowed to me and I worked with very reasonable restaurant owners,” she said, according to amNY. “But I did, like every woman in this room, deal with incredible amounts of harassment from customers and co-workers. It was a very routine way of life.”
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That same year, Poehler brought Saru Jayaraman, an activist advocating for fair wages for restaurant workers, to the Golden Globes. “She’s my partner in a much bigger movement,” Poehler told Elle. “Not a lot of people go to the Golden Globes, but everyone has either worked in or eaten in a restaurant, and she’s working specifically on legislation to help reduce the amount of harassment.”
Additionally, in 2021, Poehler directed the coming-of-age film Moxie, which revolves around a group of young women who publish a zine in order to combat sexual harassment and rape culture.
Watch Poehler and Forte’s full conversation above.
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