AMC has pulled ‘Talking With Chris Hardwick” from its schedule while it assesses accusations of abusive behavior made against him Friday by his ex-girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra.
Hardwick has also withdrawn as moderator on AMC and BBC America’s planned Comic-Con 2018 panels, the network announced Saturday.
“We have had a positive working relationship with Chris Hardwick for many years. We take the troubling allegations that surfaced yesterday very seriously,” AMC said in a statement.
“While we assess the situation, ‘Talking With Chris Hardwick’ will not air on AMC, and Chris has decided to step aside from moderating planned AMC and BBC America panels at Comic-Con International in San Diego next month.”
Hardwick has been a mainstay at AMC since 2011, when he began hosting the talk show “Talking Dead” after the premiere episode of “The Walking Dead” Season 2. Hardwick has also hosted “Talking Bad” after “Breaking Bad,” “Talking Saul” after “Better Call Saul,” and “Talking Preacher” after “Preacher.”
On Saturday, NBC also announced that it would “assess” its ties to Hardwick, who was expected to begin shooting the third season of the primetime game show “The Wall” in September.
“These allegations about Chris Hardwick took us by surprise as we have had a positive working relationship with him,” the network said in a statement, adding, “we are continuing to assess the situation and will take appropriate action based on the outcome.”
On Friday, Hardwick’s name was scrubbed from the Nerdist website. Hardwick co-founded founded Nerdist in February 2012, and the company was sold to Legendary Entertainment in July of that year.
“The company has removed all reference to Mr. Hardwick even as the original Founder of Nerdist pending further investigation,” a rep said, noting that his contract ended last December and he “had no operational involvement with Nerdist” for the previous two years.
The exodus of support for Hardwick follows Dykstra’s publication of a Medium post late Thursday that accused Hardwick of “controlling behavior” and “sexual assault” during their romantic relationship that ended four years ago.
Although she didn’t mention Hardwick by name, the timing and key details suggested that she was referring to the former “@Midnight” host and Comic-Con mainstay. She also said her ex-boyfriend and an unnamed female colleague “made calls to several companies I received regular work from to get me fired by threatening to never work with them. He succeeded. I was blacklisted.”
In a carefully worded statement released late Friday, Hardwick said he is “heartbroken” and “devastated” over Dykstra’s accusations, and insisted that “at no time did I sexually assault her.”
But in addition to denying her accusation of sexual assault, Hardwick also accused Dykstra, an actress and former on-air personality on the Nerdist YouTube network that he founded, of infidelity during their relationship.
However, he did not address Dykstra’s accusation of career retaliation in his statement.
“Talking With Chris Hardwick” was set to premiere on Sunday. This season’s lineup was to have included Donald Glover, Chris Pratt, Bill Hader, Ethan Hawke, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.