SonicSleuth
Member
By now most NeoGAFers have heard about the Chris Hardwick/Chloe Dykstra situation, and there's a probably a reason there isn't a thread about it, but in case we're all just avoiding it, I felt like this was the best place to have a legitimate discussion about what is happening with this #MeToo case. My background - I have no dog in this fight, I've never even heard of Chloe, and I find Chris is be a driven, successful Hollywood type, which suggests some things about his personality that aren't too flattering. However, a whole bunch of people owe some measure of their success to his work, so he's done something right along the way.
At this stage of the game, Chloe has posted her story online without mentioning Chris' name, but it's pretty obviously about him. Nerdist Industries was all too happy to distance themselves far from him, and AMC has taken steps as well. He's come out with a letter saying essentially "our relationship sucked, but I didn't rape anybody". His mother-in-law is the only person I can find of any consequence rushing to his rescue.
Looking at her allegations, some seem completely reasonable, others seem kind of questionable. I don't have the answers. Maybe nobody does. I would love to see her evidence, because that would probably really bolster her case, I'm guessing. But going through her claims...
1. She says that within two weeks of meeting Chris, there were five explicit "rules" about her behavior as it related to drinking, her time, other men, and public communications. She admits to making the CHOICE to stay with him even given these rules. I give her the absolute benefit of the doubt here. In my experience, ex-alcoholics are often very controlling of their circumstances so as to not put themselves in a bad situation. Driven Hollywood types are also often very controlling of their image and public standing. It seems completely reasonable that these rules may have been put in place, BUT these are not reasonable rules. These are crazy-ass controlling rules. If he put all these rules into place, he is a crazy-ass controlling dude, and she should have told him to go fck himself from the get-go. She chose not to and admits to doing so. He also does not deny the rules existed, so while it's likely that he would present these facts differently, it seems like we're all in agreement that these crazy rules were in existence, in some form, and they both knew it from very early on.
2. The dating at Comicon claim is frankly impossible to prove-up in any meaningful way and might have been crazy or it might have been reasonable. Really hard to say. If he took her to Comicon and then wouldn't let her leave the room for the duration, that's insanity, and any reasonable woman should have (again) told him to go fck himself. If he had plans and wanted to be sure they were in the same place so they could go do those things, so he told her "Stay in the room, I'll be back to get you" that might be understandable, because Comicon is huge and you can very, very easily lose your people and have no cell service with those crowds. BUT, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that he told her not to leave the room and wanted to date another person. The latter is only really relevant if they were agreed to be exclusive, and she doesn't say, but let's just keep assuming she's on the up and up. For some reason, she chose to stay with this incredibly controlling dude who didn't respect her. At this point you kind of have to ask what was going on with her that she let this continue? But by the same token, that doesn't justify his actions if he was a controlling jealous horndog.
3. This is where the story starts to get kind of questionable for me. She states that he "pressured" her to take an on-camera job. Now, I'm not 100% on the timeline of their relationship, but Chloe seems to have been a working actress in Hollywood (or at least, trying to be) prior to ever meeting Chris Hardwick. Is this the point we pretend a wanna-be working actress got "pressured" into taking an on-camera job that would build her status and establish her as on-camera talent? This seems frankly completely implausible to me. Even assuming Hardwick is the crazy controlling creep laid out above, I simply cannot wrap my head around this claim. He bullied her into having the job she wanted? I don't know, but granted, I don't know her. This opinion is formed by looking at her IMDB credits and history, which don't read like someone camera-shy.
4. And now... regular sexual assault. Starfishing. All seems pretty gross. But the claims sound... at the most charitable, unlikely. Obviously, if he was laughing at her while shy was crying and "starfishing", he's a complete monster and scumbag. He considers himself a stand-up comic, so to me, this sounds like they had bad sex that she didn't want, and then he mocked her for "starfishing" during the sex. That's also pretty monstrous, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's tone-deaf and a bad comedian who doesn't realize he's hurting somebody. So every bit of this claim is awful. But... this is the only claim he distinctly refuted. For criminal reasons? Or because she's imagining things that didn't happen? We don't really know. But she stuck around, regardless. The other comments she claims he made about her sexually seem far-fetched, but also, who knows, perhaps his attempts at bad humor. He's a bad stand-up, so maybe he thought he was being hilarious when in fact he was being very inappropriate and thoughtless.
5. The cheating. She admits to cheating, but makes it sound like it was nothing. He claims it was the thing that broke them up. Who knows. Her retelling of it seems completely lacking in authenticity, so that bleeds out to her other claims.
Clearly she was unhappy. Clearly she was anorexic and dealing with self-worth issues that he compounded. Clearly he isn't a very good dude. But what the hell was she doing dating this controlling monster who clearly established his monstrosity from the two week mark on? What exactly drew her into his web of insanity and kept her there? And... given how questionable her decisions certainly were, can we reasonably take her word as gospel? I don't know.
I do know that if half of what she said was true, I would tell any friend or relative to get the hell away from that controlling jerk instantly. I wonder how many folks told her to dump his ass along the way, because there should have been many. If there weren't, that might mean something.
Chris Hardwick's career is over. It might well be deserved. What do you folks think?
At this stage of the game, Chloe has posted her story online without mentioning Chris' name, but it's pretty obviously about him. Nerdist Industries was all too happy to distance themselves far from him, and AMC has taken steps as well. He's come out with a letter saying essentially "our relationship sucked, but I didn't rape anybody". His mother-in-law is the only person I can find of any consequence rushing to his rescue.
Looking at her allegations, some seem completely reasonable, others seem kind of questionable. I don't have the answers. Maybe nobody does. I would love to see her evidence, because that would probably really bolster her case, I'm guessing. But going through her claims...
1. She says that within two weeks of meeting Chris, there were five explicit "rules" about her behavior as it related to drinking, her time, other men, and public communications. She admits to making the CHOICE to stay with him even given these rules. I give her the absolute benefit of the doubt here. In my experience, ex-alcoholics are often very controlling of their circumstances so as to not put themselves in a bad situation. Driven Hollywood types are also often very controlling of their image and public standing. It seems completely reasonable that these rules may have been put in place, BUT these are not reasonable rules. These are crazy-ass controlling rules. If he put all these rules into place, he is a crazy-ass controlling dude, and she should have told him to go fck himself from the get-go. She chose not to and admits to doing so. He also does not deny the rules existed, so while it's likely that he would present these facts differently, it seems like we're all in agreement that these crazy rules were in existence, in some form, and they both knew it from very early on.
2. The dating at Comicon claim is frankly impossible to prove-up in any meaningful way and might have been crazy or it might have been reasonable. Really hard to say. If he took her to Comicon and then wouldn't let her leave the room for the duration, that's insanity, and any reasonable woman should have (again) told him to go fck himself. If he had plans and wanted to be sure they were in the same place so they could go do those things, so he told her "Stay in the room, I'll be back to get you" that might be understandable, because Comicon is huge and you can very, very easily lose your people and have no cell service with those crowds. BUT, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that he told her not to leave the room and wanted to date another person. The latter is only really relevant if they were agreed to be exclusive, and she doesn't say, but let's just keep assuming she's on the up and up. For some reason, she chose to stay with this incredibly controlling dude who didn't respect her. At this point you kind of have to ask what was going on with her that she let this continue? But by the same token, that doesn't justify his actions if he was a controlling jealous horndog.
3. This is where the story starts to get kind of questionable for me. She states that he "pressured" her to take an on-camera job. Now, I'm not 100% on the timeline of their relationship, but Chloe seems to have been a working actress in Hollywood (or at least, trying to be) prior to ever meeting Chris Hardwick. Is this the point we pretend a wanna-be working actress got "pressured" into taking an on-camera job that would build her status and establish her as on-camera talent? This seems frankly completely implausible to me. Even assuming Hardwick is the crazy controlling creep laid out above, I simply cannot wrap my head around this claim. He bullied her into having the job she wanted? I don't know, but granted, I don't know her. This opinion is formed by looking at her IMDB credits and history, which don't read like someone camera-shy.
4. And now... regular sexual assault. Starfishing. All seems pretty gross. But the claims sound... at the most charitable, unlikely. Obviously, if he was laughing at her while shy was crying and "starfishing", he's a complete monster and scumbag. He considers himself a stand-up comic, so to me, this sounds like they had bad sex that she didn't want, and then he mocked her for "starfishing" during the sex. That's also pretty monstrous, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's tone-deaf and a bad comedian who doesn't realize he's hurting somebody. So every bit of this claim is awful. But... this is the only claim he distinctly refuted. For criminal reasons? Or because she's imagining things that didn't happen? We don't really know. But she stuck around, regardless. The other comments she claims he made about her sexually seem far-fetched, but also, who knows, perhaps his attempts at bad humor. He's a bad stand-up, so maybe he thought he was being hilarious when in fact he was being very inappropriate and thoughtless.
5. The cheating. She admits to cheating, but makes it sound like it was nothing. He claims it was the thing that broke them up. Who knows. Her retelling of it seems completely lacking in authenticity, so that bleeds out to her other claims.
Clearly she was unhappy. Clearly she was anorexic and dealing with self-worth issues that he compounded. Clearly he isn't a very good dude. But what the hell was she doing dating this controlling monster who clearly established his monstrosity from the two week mark on? What exactly drew her into his web of insanity and kept her there? And... given how questionable her decisions certainly were, can we reasonably take her word as gospel? I don't know.
I do know that if half of what she said was true, I would tell any friend or relative to get the hell away from that controlling jerk instantly. I wonder how many folks told her to dump his ass along the way, because there should have been many. If there weren't, that might mean something.
Chris Hardwick's career is over. It might well be deserved. What do you folks think?
