The last time actor Columbus Short spoke about being arrested, he simply said that his legal team advised him not to say much.
That was more than two months ago and now he is ready to publicly address all his legal woes.
During an interview with Billy Bush of Access Hollywood television program, Short denied having a current problem with alcohol and said he wasn’t actually fired from his role on the hit TV series, Scandal.
The troubled star accused Dallas officers of putting him in handcuffs for no reason after an incident on July 4th.
“There’s something visceral that happened inside of me, and yeah, I’ll say it, even as a Black man in handcuffs on the ground, for no justifiable reason at all,” he said. “I wasn’t acting intoxicated. I had had a couple of drinks, but whatever, I was angry and I used my vocabulary to kind of fight that… I didn’t get into a fight.”
His recent altercations in bars led to speculation that he had a drinking problem, but Short said that wasn’t the case.
He admitted to having a problem with alcohol in the past, but then immediately insisted that alcohol hasn’t been a part of his life lately.
“To be honest with you, I struggle with medicating with alcohol I think, and that’s the real truth,” he said. “I think that deserves more looking into…medicating with anything, I think is dangerous because it becomes a crutch.”
He added that his past experiences with alcohol “doesn’t change [the situation].”
“I’m in a season where that’s not a part of my life – alcohol, drugs, those kinds of things aren’t around me, aren’t in my life, so it was an unfortunate event that happened the other night,” he said.
As far as his relationship with his former “Scandal” cast mates, Short claims they are still like family to him and that he was never tossed to the curb the way reports suggested.
“Let’s talk about ABC and let’s talk about the show ‘Scandal,’” Short said. “They did not throw me to the curb like trash – that’s my family. They knew that I was going through a tough season and rallied around me and wrapped their arms around me, from Shonda [Rhimes, Scandal creator], to the craft service man. We’re a family and I think at a certain point when you’re getting a barrage of stories after stories, ABC justifiably would want to distance themselves… They did the right thing, but I think it takes time to rebuild.”
According to Short, the “ugly stories” that were circulating around him caused him to lose a lot in his life because they left a “nasty taste in people’s mouth.”
He claimed it was “unfair,” but still a storm he will have to weather simply because his personal life was magnified by the media.
During the interview, Short also decided to speak about his nasty divorce with estranged wife Tanee McCall.
“Me and my wife, we’re going through problems,” he said. “Serious, serious problems. However, the domestic [violence] part of it… I’m not a physically violent man… I’ve never put my hands on a woman, physically, ever, and would not. I was raised by a woman.”
He then insisted that the chapter of his life that he spent together with McCall is closed, and he’s “excited for the next one.”
The full interview with Short will air later this week on “Access Hollywood.”
