In early April, former Glee star Matthew Morrison was announced as one of the newest hosts on the upcoming season of So You Think You Can Dance. On May 27, one week after making his judging debut, Morrison was fired from the competition series for what he described in a statement as a failure to “follow competition production protocols, preventing me from being able to judge the competition fairly.” That could have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.
On Thursday, as The Wrap reports, Morrison posted a video to Instagram in which he denied reports claiming that his dismissal was due to inappropriate behavior with a contestant. “It’s unfortunate that I have to sit here and defend myself and my family against blatantly untrue statements made anonymously,” Morrison said in the video, “but I have nothing to hide. So, in the interest of transparency… I will read to you the one message I wrote to a dancer on the show: ‘Hey! It’s Matthew. If you don’t mind, would love to get your number and talk you through some things.’”
Morrison went on to explain that he had wanted to speak with the dancer about a choreographer they were both fans of with the idea of bringing the person onto the show. It was the message’s recipient who brought Morrison’s communication to the attention of producers. A source close to the production told People that “she felt uncomfortable with his line of comments and went to producers, who then got Fox involved. He was fired after they did their own investigation.”
Morrison ended his post by stating:
“It’s devastating that we live in this world where gossip rules and people’s lives are being thrown around as clickbait. This is much bigger than me and this story. Gossip is toxic and it is destroying our society and we need to do better.”
(Via The Wrap)
