Nigel Lythgoe is out at So You Assume You Can Dance. On Friday, the manufacturing firms and community behind the competitors sequence introduced that its upcoming 18th season will proceed with out Lythgoe as he faces sexual assault lawsuits.
“19 Entertainment, Dick Clark Productions, and FOX can confirm the upcoming season of So You Think You Can Dance will proceed, although without Nigel Lythgoe, to ensure the show remains committed to the contestants, who have worked incredibly hard for the opportunity to compete on our stage,” the assertion learn. “No decision has been made as to a replacement judge for this season, which will premiere on FOX on Monday, March 4th.”
Lythgoe co-created the sequence alongside Simon Fuller. He served as a decide for its first 16 seasons. For season 18, Allison Holker and Maksim Chmerkovskiy shall be the present’s judges together with visitor decide Consolation Fedoke. Returning to host the beloved dance competitors sequence is Cat Deeley.
Lythgoe’s SYTYCD exit comes lower than every week after Paula Abdul filed a sexual assault lawsuit towards him. Within the swimsuit, which was obtained by ET, Abdul claimed that the American Idol producer sexually assaulted her on two events, as soon as when she was a decide on Idol and once more when she was a decide on So You Assume You Can Dance, each of which Lythgoe denied in a press release to ET.
“To say that I am shocked and saddened by the allegations made against me by Paula Abdul is a wild understatement,” Lythgoe’s assertion learn. “For more than two decades, Paula and I have interacted as dear — and entirely platonic — friends and colleagues. Yesterday, however, out of the blue, I learned of these claims in the press and I want to be clear: not only are they false, they are deeply offensive to me and to everything I stand for.”
“While Paula’s history of erratic behavior is well known, I can’t pretend to understand exactly why she would file a lawsuit that she must know is untrue,” Lythgoe’s assertion concluded. “But I can promise that I will fight this appalling smear with everything I have.”
Shortly thereafter, a number of retailers obtained one other lawsuit towards Lythgoe. In that authorized submitting, two ladies declare that Lythgoe sexually assaulted them they had been contestants on the short-lived ABC actuality competitors present All American Woman again in 2003. ET has reached out to Lythgoe for touch upon the second lawsuit.
Each of the lawsuits had been filed underneath California’s Sexual Abuse and Cowl Up Accountability Act, which gave individuals a window of alternative to filed lawsuits associated to alleged incidents that might in any other case fall exterior the statute of limitations. Nonetheless, that window closed on Dec. 31 — which means Abdul’s lawsuit made the reduce, however the second lawsuit might not qualify for consideration underneath the Sexual Abuse and Cowl Up Accountability Act.
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