Chris Hardwick’s AMC Talk Show Yanked After Abuse Allegations
Image
The television host Chris Hardwick’s scheduled appearances at Comic-Con and the Kaaboo festival have been canceled. His ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual and emotional abuse.CreditJesse Grant/Getty Images for AMC
By
Jacey Fortin
A television show on AMC hosted by the comedian Chris Hardwick will not air as scheduled, the network said on Saturday, following allegations from an ex-girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra, that he had emotionally and sexually abused her.
In
an essay posted on Medium on Thursday, Ms. Dykstra, an actress and model, said she had been in a three-year relationship with a man who repeatedly sexually assaulted her and enforced restrictive rules. She did not name Mr. Hardwick specifically. In a statement on Saturday he said, “I’m devastated to read that she is now accusing me of conduct that did not occur.”
AMC said in a statement that Mr. Hardwick’s show, “Talking With Chris Hardwick,” would not go on the air. The second season of the show had been scheduled to debut on Sunday.
“We have had a positive working relationship with Chris Hardwick for many years,” the network said. “We take the troubling allegations that surfaced yesterday very seriously. While we assess the situation, ‘Talking With Chris Hardwick’ will not air on AMC.”
Subscribe to The Times
When they broke up shortly after she kissed another man, Ms. Dykstra said, “he made calls to several companies I received regular work from to get me fired by threatening to never work with them.”
“He succeeded,” she wrote. “I was blacklisted.”
In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Hardwick denied the allegations.
“Our three-year relationship was not perfect — we were ultimately not a good match and argued — even shouted at each other — but I loved her, and did my best to uplift and support her as a partner and companion in any way and at no time did I sexually assault her,” the statement said.
“When we were living together, I found out that Chloe had cheated on me, and I ended the relationship,” the statement added. “For several weeks after we broke up, she asked to get back together with me and even told me she wanted to have kids with me, ‘build a life’ with me and told me that I was ‘the one,’ but I did not want to be with someone who was unfaithful.”
The statement from AMC said that Mr. Hardwick had decided to step down from moderating panels at Comic-Con International in San Diego next month.
Kaaboo, a music and comedy festival in September in Del Mar, Calif., at which Mr. Hardwick had been scheduled to perform, said in
a statement on Friday that it “does not condone, and will not tolerate, any type of abusive behavior or harassment,” and that it had decided to pull him from the lineup.
Nerdist Industries, a digital entertainment company founded by Mr. Hardwick, removed his name from its website, said a spokeswoman for Legendary Entertainment, which now owns the company. She added that Mr. Hardwick “had no operational involvement with Nerdist for the two years preceding the expiration of his contract in December 2017.”
Mr. Hardwick is a stand-up comedian, podcast pioneer and digital media entrepreneur who built an
empire around nerd culture.
He was also involved in a series of television projects and hosted “Talking Dead,” an AMC show in which he discussed the hit series “Walking Dead” just after it aired; and “Talking Bad,” which did the same for the popular series “Breaking Bad.” On the first season of “Talking With Chris Hardwick,” he conducted interviews with movie and television stars.
Prominent men across a wide range of industries have faced accusations of abuse in recent months, and many women have used
the hashtag #MeToo on social media to share their experiences of sexual harassment, assault and rape.
“I’m not alone,” Ms. Dykstra wrote of her own experience. “This kind of relationship is
so common, and so easy to slip into. Normalizing behavior happens incredibly quickly, and one can lose track of what is acceptable treatment.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/arts/television/chris-hardwick-abuse-allegations.html
for Talking Dead as well(unless they get either Gale Anne Hurd or Robert Kirkman himself to host lol )
)
the CURRENT boyfriend
