Last night, actress and model Chloe Dykstra published an essay on Medium in which she accused a former boyfriend of emotional and sexual abuse during their three-year relationship. While Dykstra did not name the boyfriend, she noted that “he grew from a mildly successful podcaster to a powerhouse CEO of his own company,†mentioned going to San Diego Comic-Con with him, and claimed she was “quickly pressured to take an on-camera job at his company I didn’t want … because he insinuated I would be ungrateful to not accept it.†On Twitter, many were quick to point out that the unnamed boyfriend in Dykstra’s essay was Chris Hardwick, which was somewhat confirmed when Dykstra liked one of the tweets mentioning his name:
Hardwick has not publicly commented on Dykstra’s essay, but it appears that his TV/internet entertainment empire Nerdist has gone ahead and confirmed his identity. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, all references to Hardwick’s name were scrubbed from the Nerdist website today. Here’s a screenshot of Nerdist’s “About†page today followed by a screenshot from before the change:
“Chris Hardwick had no operational involvement with Nerdist for the two years preceding the expiration of his contract in December 2017,†a spokesperson for Legendary Entertainment, which purchased the Nerdist site in 2012, said on the decision to remove Hardwick’s name from the site. “He no longer has any affiliation with Legendary Digital Networks. The company has removed all reference to Mr. Hardwick even as the original Founder of Nerdist pending further investigation.â€
Legendary’s statement doesn’t quite add up with this Hollywood Reporter article from February 2018, however, which claimed that while Hardwick had stepped back from day-to-day operations at Nerdist, he was still the company’s CEO and had “remained involved in Nerdist over the past six years.â€
Nerdist also released a statement on Twitter saying the company is “shocked to read the news this morning†and finds Hardwick’s alleged behavior “contrary to everything we stand for and believe in.†Read the full statement below:
Dykstra also tweeted – again, without naming names – that her alleged abuser has not been involved in the company he founded for “several years,†and said she hoped that company’s employees would not suffer as a result of her piece.