Author: Nell Greenfieldboyce / Source: NPR.org
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has responded to recent allegations of sexual misconduct by posting a lengthy statement online, in which he denies wrongdoing and says he welcomes an impartial investigation by the producers of his show Cosmos.
“In any claim, evidence matters. Evidence always matters.
But what happens when it’s just one person’s word against another’s, and the stories don’t agree? That’s when people tend to pass judgment on who is more credible than whom,” wrote Tyson, head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.Three separate woman have come forward with accounts of experiences with Tyson that disturbed them, according to the website Patheos.
The most recent episode was earlier this year. Ashley Watson worked briefly as an assistant and driver for Tyson, while the show Cosmos was filmed in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She says on May 16, as the show was just about to wrap up production, Tyson invited her to join him in his apartment for wine in the evening after work.
Watson tells NPR she went because she thought he wanted to talk about her continuing to work as his assistant when the show moved on to filming in Europe.
Instead, she says, he put on music by Nina Simone, opened wine, and began pulling cheese from the fridge. She recalls that he had taken off his shoes and was wearing a tank top. “I remember thinking, ‘This is a lot of skin for me to be seeing on my boss,’ ” Watson says. “The vibe was just kind of weird.” She…
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