Back in early February, 2019 voice actor Neil Kaplan, known for Red Dead Redemption 2, Destiny 2, World of Warcraft, Gundam and Voltron, accused fellow voice actor Vic Mignogna of misconduct while at a convention when Mignogna climbed onto Kaplan’s shoulders as part of a joke. However, while Kaplan has been championing the #MeToo movement and castigating Mignogna, new information has come to light from a staffer who did volunteer work at some of the conventions Kaplan attended, and according to her story, Kaplan engaged in inappropriate behavior and misconducted himself at the event.
YouTuber Hero Hei goes over all of the accusations and allegations against the various voice actors up until this point. At the 14 minute mark Hei begins going over some of Kaplan’s tweets about how he never liked Mignogna, and then segues into an allegation made by a con-staffer who accused Kaplan of the kind of inappropriate behavior that Kaplan accused Mignogna of.
The story that Hero Hei recounts comes from a Twitter post made by a certain Vanessa Gomez, who shared the story of her friend Emily, who originally posted the information on Instagram.
This is my friend Emily’s story, please share. She does not have a Twitter account to share this to. @vicmignogna @NeKap #sigh #inappropriate #unprofessional #speakingup #mytruth #metoo https://t.co/3qTeGegBWK
— Vanessa Gomez (@Nasagxd) February 6, 2019
Now, in the Instagram post, Emily recounts how she was working as a volunteer at an Anime Convention between January 4th and January 6th of 2019.
She was assigned as Kaplan’s guest handler, where she noted that during her tenure as his handler he allegedly kept making inappropriate gestures by wanting her to go out to dinner with him or go out for drinks, while she politely and repeatedly declined.
She also noted that Kaplan kept inviting her up to his room whenever she encountered him, which happened again at another convention that took place between February 2nd and February 3rd, 2019.
Emily also stated that Kaplan had a measure of persistence about his intentions, and even texted her about it. Emily provided the text messages that Kaplan had sent her and shared them on Instagram.
At the end of Emily’s second encounter with Kaplan, she recounts what happened as they were wrapping up the first day of the convention, writing…
“Okay, now let me explain the incident that went way too far for me. At the end of the first day of the anime convention, Neil came up to me during clean up. With another volunteer present, he hugs me and then after the hugs puts his hands on my shoulders. He lightly shakes me back and forth and I will never forget what he said next. He said to me ‘(Sigh) I just want to snuggle you, it’s so wrong, but I just want to snuggle you’. He then proceeds to hug me again. After that, though I should have reported him to my superiors sooner, I talked to the management team at the convention and came clean about everything including what happened at the previous convention. After that, all of the staff and volunteers worked with me to have little to no interaction with Neil as humanly possible.”
This comes after Kaplan had accused Vic Mignogna of misconduct during the news circling about Rooster Teeth firing Vic Mignogna from RWBY.
Many fans began calling out Kaplan on Twitter after reading Emily’s story. Kaplan responded on February 7th, 2019 by saying that he would put together an apology over the weekend.
I am preparing a response which will include my entire recollection of the two weekends in question. It will include the entire thread of every text sent between us, not just two select lines. But, everything. You’ll be able to see it all laid out. Then decide how you view me.
— (((Neil Kaplan))) (@NeKap) February 7, 2019
On February 8th, Kaplan followed up by also stating that he would be posting the full screencaps from the exchange he had with Emily to further add context to their interactions and clear up some misunderstandings.
At that time, I will also post the unedited complete chat log with some notes pointing out what can be verified by time stamp In order to clarify some things with the aid of seeing actual conversation. Anything else can be too easily disregarded.
— (((Neil Kaplan))) (@NeKap) February 8, 2019
Kaplan, however, maintains his stance that Mignogna was in the wrong and has not walked back those statements.
Kaplan made it known that he never liked Mignogna, which made some people feel Kaplan was being disingenuous with his #MeToo story, calling it an attempt to pile on Mignogna while he was being accused of misconduct by others.
He makes people wait for him. Is that a power trip or is it disregard for anyone else’s time? Who knows? But even after a “tear filled apology” he pulled the same stunt this weekend making his fans wait unnecessarily for him.
— (((Neil Kaplan))) (@NeKap) February 4, 2019
Nevertheless, some fans are waiting for the full story from Kaplan this weekend, assuming all of the details are posted up as he declared.
(Thanks for the news tip Ebicentre and Iswear12)
