After CNN published a report containing eight women’s sexual harassment allegations against actor Morgan Freeman, National Geographic paused production on his docuseries The Story of God with Morgan Freeman while Fox performed an internal investigation. On Friday, the channel announced the conclusion of that investigation and the forthcoming third season of the show.
“When we learned of recent allegations surrounding Mr. Freeman completely unrelated to our work with him, as a precaution we paused production on our new season in order to complete a thorough investigation led by our parent company Fox executed through an independent investigator,†the company said in a statement reported by EW. “The results of this investigation revealed no incidents of concern during any of our work with Mr. Freeman.â€
The CNN report, published in late May, detailed claims that Freeman and production company co-founder Lori McCreary maintained a “toxic†work environment. The actor subsequently apologized for “misplaced compliments or humor†he might have attempted, but denied sexual harassing anyone. “Clearly I was not always coming across the way I intended. And that is why I apologized Thursday and will continue to apologize to anyone I might have upset, however unintentionally,†he said in a statement at the time. “But I also want to be clear: I did not create unsafe work environments. I did not assault women.â€
NatGeo’s new statement continued, “We have now made the decision to move forward with the production of season three of The Story of God. This series has expanded our understanding of religion and culture around the world and has touched many of our fans, and along with Morgan and the team at Revelations Entertainment, we look forward to resuming pre-production this September. As a company, we take all issues of harassment very seriously and we’re confidently assured by the results of the investigation.â€