‘The Four’: Judges Diddy, DJ Khaled, Meghan Trainor Return, Minus Charlie Walk
Sean Combs, DJ Khaled and Meghan Trainor will return for the second season of The Four without music executive Charlie Walk, who faced a series of sexual misconduct allegations, Variety reports. Five women accused the former Republic Records – who parted ways with the company in March – of unwanted advances, touching and lewd comments in a Rolling Stone exposé earlier this year.
Walk, a former employee of both Columbia and Epic Records, became president of Republic in 2016 and helped launch the careers of artists like Julia Michaels, DNCE and Hailee Steinfeld. His profile rose considerably in 2018 after joining Fox’s music competition series The Four as one of the show’s judges.
The first claim against Walk came on January 29th, when Tristan Coopersmith, one of Walk’s former employees at Columbia, wrote an open letter on her website alleging numerous examples of harassment throughout her year-long tenure with the company. Walk denied the accusations.
Soon after, four additional women came forward with similar accusations against Walk, which alleged inappropriate touching, unwanted kissing, sending unsolicited and explicit photos and video and exposing his penis – behavior that multiple women described to Rolling Stone as an “open secret.”
In January, Walk issued a statement following his decision to leave the show. “Out of respect for the contestants, my fellow judges and everyone involved with the show, I have made the decision not to attend the finale of The Four,” Walk said.
Walk also denied the accusations in a statement issued to Rolling Stone in February. “I did not do these things and this is not who I am,” he wrote. “Throughout my career I have always sought to conduct myself professionally and appropriately. It is upsetting to be presented with false claims from long ago that I know to be untrue and were never reported. I support the national discussion taking place right now because I believe fully in the importance in treating everyone with respect and dignity at all times.”
Walk resigned from The Four before the season finale as the allegations mounted, at which point he had appeared in five episodes.