Chris Hardwick will be allowed to return to his role as the host of Talking Deadafter The Walking Deadreturns on Aug. 12.
He was taken off the job in mid-June after actor and ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra publicly leveled allegations of sexual assault and emotional abuse. The reinstatement comes after an internal investigation conducted at AMC, the cable network that airs both shows.
SEE ALSO:Chris Hardwick's bad statement got people talking about toxic nerd cultureThe news comes from an AMC statement that speaks of the investigation in vague terms (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Following a comprehensive assessment by AMC, working with Ivy Kagan Bierman of the firm Loeb & Loeb, who has considerable experience in this area, Chris Hardwick will return to AMC as the host of Talking Deadand Talking With Chris Hardwick. We take these matters very seriously and given the information available to us after a very careful review, including interviews with numerous individuals, we believe returning Chris to work is the appropriate step.
Hardwick has been largely absent from the public eye since Dykstra first shared her story about their relationship in a June 14 Medium post. She didn't name him in the post, but the identity of her anonymous ex was quickly apparent to many observers. Hardwick later confirmed those suspicions himself when he issued a statement responding to the allegations.
The revelations laid out in Dykstra's essay led to immediate professional fallout for Hardwick, with AMC suspending him pending an investigation -- Talking Deadco-host Yvette Nicole Brown took over his Comic-Con panels -- and Nerdist issuing a statement distancing itself from its founder.
Just remember, kids: AMC giving Hardwick a pass isn't the same as him being absolved completely. Dykstra's allegations are still out there, for you to believe or not believe as you will. But she didn't write all of that to get him fired, she didn't even name him at all.
Dykstra simply did what so many other brave women have been doing in recent years: She shared her story. The explanation is right there at the end of the Medium post.
This story, post, whatever this is, serves as both closure for me as I say farewell to my twenties and stumble my way into my thirties, and it serves as a warning for every single one of you, regardless of gender. One of my favorite quotes comes from Bojack Horseman:“You know, it’s funny; when you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”Please, please, keep an eye out for those red flags.
So Hardwick goes back to work, almost certainly with fewer fans than he had as recently as a month and a half ago, and the world keeps on turning. Plenty of men have skated through situations like this -- and many more will continue to do so -- with even less to worry about.
But this is still one more story to torpedo any illusions that everything's magically getting better now that #MeToo and Time's Up exist. Systemic problems like our culture's enduring gender imbalance are insidious from start to finish. They outlive entire generations, and they don't ever fully disappear, even with constant vigilance.
Hardwick is simply one more name for the pile, yet another problematic geek man who will carry the taint of this controversy for a long time to come. If there's a silver lining here, maybe it's this: The bigger the pile of asterisked names gets, the more the system that props those names up will collapse on itself.
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