Do we like Jon Hamm?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up, he has put his name to campaigns against sexual assault, and the one real stain is a 1990 case he has downplayed.
Jon Hamm is the Mad Men guy, and Don Draper made him a star well into his thirties. Before that he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, and that is where the one proper blemish on his record comes from.
The way Hamm handled it when it resurfaced is part of the story. In a 2018 Esquire interview he said “It was a bummer of a thing that happened” and called the reporting sensationalised. He said he was essentially acquitted, and the interviewer noted his tone turned angry. It reads as a bloke who wants it gone, not one who has sat down and reckoned with it.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty from him. No slide into conspiracy theories, nothing against LGBTQ+ people or women, and no culture-war studios in his recent work. He appeared in the White House It's On Us campaign against campus sexual assault. He also endorsed the Democrat Lucas Kunce in Missouri's 2022 Senate primary and joined a virtual fundraiser. To be straight with you, our search turned up almost nothing on trans issues specifically, so that part of the record is thin.
The recent news is more awards-season embarrassment than scandal. Apple submitted him as a guest actor for The Morning Show, but a rule brought in last year stops actors already nominated for a role from re-entering it as a guest. He was disqualified, though he stays in the running for Your Friends and Neighbors and Grimsburg. No harm done, only a bit of a clanger for the paperwork people.