Picture Credit score: Greg Hernandez / CC by 2.0
Nigel Lythgoe formally steps down from ‘So You Assume You Can Dance’ following a number of sexual assault allegations, together with a lawsuit from Paula Abdul.
Choreographer and govt producer Nigel Lythgoe is stepping down from his place as a choose on “So You Assume You Can Dance” following two lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault. The primary lawsuit alleges that Lythgoe groped and “forcibly kissed” Paula Abdul in an elevator almost 20 years in the past. The second, filed by two “All-American Lady” contestants, additionally accuses Lythgoe of comparable conduct in 2003.
Lythgoe, who has been a choose on “So You Assume You Can Dance” since its debut in 2005, introduced he would “step again from taking part” within the forthcoming season of the present to concentrate on “clearing my title and restoring my repute.”
“I’ve knowledgeable the producers of ‘So You Assume You Can Dance’ of my choice to step again from taking part on this yr’s collection,” Lythgoe tells Selection. “I did so with a heavy coronary heart however fully voluntarily, as a result of this nice program has at all times been about dance and dancers, and that’s the place its focus wants to stay.”
In the meantime, Sony Footage Tv’s 19 Leisure, a co-producer of the present, has opened an investigation into Lythgoe. 19 Leisure, alongside Dick Clark Productions, revealed that the upcoming season will proceed, however with out Lythgoe, “to make sure the present stays dedicated to the contestants, who’ve labored extremely exhausting for the chance to compete on our stage.”
The 18th season of “So You Assume You Can Dance” premieres on March 4 on Fox, with judges Allison Holker and Maksim Chmerkovskiy — however no choices have been made but for a choose to interchange Lythgoe.
Paula Abdul, who was a choose on the Lythgoe-produced “So You Assume You Can Dance” and “American Idol,” sued Lythgoe on December 29 beneath California’s Sexual Abuse and Cowl Up Accountability Act. This legislature revived lawsuits that might in any other case be barred by the statute of limitations.