Chris Hardwick's AMC talk show yanked after abuse allegations

In a statement 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 Hardwick’s show, “Talking With Chris Hardwick,” would not go on the air. The second season of the show had been scheduled to debut 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.”

It did not elaborate on what kind of assessment was underway.

In her essay, Dykstra described “long-lasting trauma, physical and emotional,” adding that her ex-boyfriend created a set of rules for her that prohibited certain activities, like drinking alcohol and spending too much time with friends.

She said she often felt obligated to have sex when she did not want to. “I was expected to be ready for him when he came home from work,” she said.

When they broke up shortly after she kissed another man, 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 Saturday, 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 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, California, at which Hardwick had been scheduled to perform, said in a statement 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 Hardwick, removed his name from its website, said a spokeswoman for Legendary Entertainment, which now owns the company. She added that Hardwick “had no operational involvement with Nerdist for the two years preceding the expiration of his contract in December 2017.”

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.

Hardwick also hosted “The Wall,” an NBC game show whose production was scheduled to resume in September. In light of the abuse allegations, NBC said it was “continuing to assess the situation and will take appropriate action based on the outcome.”

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,” 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.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Chris Hardwick's AMC talk show yanked after abuse allegations

In an essay posted on Medium on Thursday, 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 Hardwick specifically.

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