Adam Carolla became one of the first celebrities to defend Chris Hardwick.
It happened on Wednesday when a discussion with columnist AJ Benza on Carolla’s podcast, “The Adam Carolla” show, turned toward the recent accusations posed against the Nerdist co-founder, who has appeared on Carolla’s show in the past. Carolla referred to Hardwick as a “gentle soul of a guy.”
Hardwick, a king in the geek media industry, was dealt a significant blow after actress and former Nerdist host Chloe Dykstra posted a Medium essay last week, accusing her ex-boyfriend of “sexual assault,” “controlling behavior” and career sabotage after their breakup.
Hardwick denied Dkystra’s sexual assault accusations in a statement the following day.
“First off, he’s a gentle soul of a guy,” Carolla said after acknowledging that people have been approaching him with questions about Hardwick. “Chris has always been a very thoughtful, sort of just gentle guy.”
Carolla added that there is no such thing as a relationship where someone couldn’t later write that at one point in time they “felt threatened.”
“A skinny chick in L.A. who is an actress — he caused you to be anorexic?” A.J. Benza said of Dykstra’s accusation about forming an eating disorder during her time with Hardwick.
Benza added: “The same people that are saying, ‘Hey, you know, you can’t say Asia Argento caused Anthony Bourdain to kill himself,’ they’re the people that are now saying, ‘Well, Chris Hardwick probably caused her to be anorexic.’ You can’t have it both ways.”
Benza also defended Hardwick for, according Dykstra’s account, asking a doctor when he could have sex with her again, after she was hospitalized for an ectopic pregnancy.
“Now he’s known as a real a–hole who pushes around chicks,” Benza said. “And, by the way, she was with with him because it behooved her in this cosplay world that she’s in to have the nerd husband and — you know, it worked together.”
“The guys that seem to be getting it the worst are the guys that are the soft spoken, gentlemanly, sober, nerdy [types],” Carolla added. “Nobody is saying s–t about [Rob] Gronkowski, cause we already have him labeled as a cave person. A lot of the stuff that’s turning is the irony, like, ‘Look at him, he’s talking about the nerd-related stuff and doing this and doing that. And ah-ha! Ah-ha! You see what’s going on? Ah-ha!’”
“How much of this is sort of the ironic turnaround?” he questioned.
Carolla showed concern that, “because everyone is making allegations about everything all the time, we don’t know, which is the problem with everyone making allegations all the time.”
“And he’s automatically guilty of everything, there’s no investigation, there’s no trial,” Benza added. “He is kicked off of everything he’s done for the last several years.”
Following the publication of Dykstra’s essay, Legendary and Nerdist were quick to distance themselves from the company’s co-founder, scrubbing his name from their website.
Then, not long after Hardwick’s subsequent denial, AMC took the geek impresario’s “Talking With Chris Hardwick” off its schedule just one day before its second-season premiere, and the network has essentially suspended its relationship with Hardwick pending an investigation of Dykstra’s accusations. He has also been pulled from moderating two panels for BBC and AMC at next month’s Comic-Con.
NBC, home to the Hardwick-hosted game show “The Wall,” also released a statement saying it was “continuing to assess” the situation and would take “appropriate action based on the outcome” of that assessment.
Here is Part II of Wednesday’s “Adam Carolla Show.” The Hardwick discussion begins at the 1:40 mark.