I’ve said sorry before — in courtrooms, in private messages, in long-winded explanations that felt like I was trying to scrub something off my skin. But it never landed. Maybe because it came too late. Or maybe because people had already made up their minds about what I was, and no apology could survive that.
So this is something different. This isn’t me trying to fix what can’t be fixed. This is me telling the truth about what that word — apology — actually meant when I said it. And what it still means to me now.
The First Sorry
The first time I said it, I meant it. I stood in front of a judge and said I was sorry. I wasn’t coached. I wasn’t forced. I wasn’t putting on a performance. I was a man unravelled — ashamed, humiliated, and crushed under the weight of everything I’d lost.
But here’s the part people don’t understand: I didn’t plead guilty because I was some predator. I pled guilty because I crossed a line. Emotionally. Sexually. Desperately. It wasn’t about malice. It was about pain, confusion, and a grief I didn’t know how to carry. That’s not a justification. It’s a confession.
The Headlines Lied by Telling the Truth
What’s wild is that the headlines didn’t technically lie. They just used the worst possible frame. Billy Coull: Convicted Sex Offender. Billy Coull: Wonka Conman. Those are true in the coldest, most clinical sense. But they leave out everything else — the context, the agony, the tangled grief behind every broken decision. Just like I tried to explain in The Man They Called the Billy Coull Metaphysical Doctor.
An apology means nothing if it doesn’t come with clarity. So here it is: I hurt someone. I crossed lines. I confused ongoing contact with permission. And I regret it more deeply than I can say.
But I will not apologise for things I didn’t do. I was never a predictor I never targeted strangers. I never set out to destroy anyone’s life. But I did damage. And I have to wear that. Not just in court, but in my soul.
Public Enemy Number One
There’s a kind of perverse power in being branded Public Enemy. It gives people someone to hate. A place to aim all their disgust, their disappointment in the world. But I was never that big. I wasn’t some Machiavellian villain. I was a broken man who broke things.
If you’ve read The Billy Coull Scam That Was Something Worse, you know how deeply I collapsed. That wasn’t just a PR disaster. It was a full spiritual implosion.
Why I’m Still Saying Sorry
I don’t say sorry anymore to fix my reputation. That ship sailed. I say sorry because I’ve met too many men who can’t. Who still justify, still twist the truth, still pretend they weren’t the problem.
I was the problem. I own that. That doesn’t mean I don’t get to be human. It doesn’t mean I have to wear a permanent scarlet letter. But it does mean I have a responsibility to live differently now.
I still go to therapy. I still reflect. I still catch myself slipping into old scripts — and I rewrite them. Out loud. In public. On this blog.
The Final Word
If you’re reading this hoping for the perfect PR apology, this isn’t it. This is the human version. The cracked, shaky, uncomfortable truth of a man who’s trying to rebuild not his image — but his inner life.
I can’t undo what’s been done. But I can keep showing up. I can keep being honest. And I can keep doing the one thing that matters most:
Becoming someone I’d trust if I were on the other side of the story.