HBO Max to remove British comedian James Veitch's special after multiple women accuse him of rape

The Hollywood Reporter

On July 22, Conan O'Brien's Team Coco announced it would produce HBO Max comedy specials for four comedians, including Veitch, who would star in a special titled Straight to VHS that would be released on Aug. 20. On July 23, Meghan Klien, a postproduction supervisor in Los Angeles and a big comedy fan, saw an article about the comedy special. "Klien had barely known Veitch when she was a 22-year-old senior at Sarah Lawrence College in 2009 and he was a graduate student, then pushing 30. But seeing news of the comedy special made her furious," reports The Hollywood Reporter's Kim Masters. "Klien tweeted impulsively: 'It was common knowledge to stay away from him when I was an undergrad… It makes my skin crawl to see someone like that succeed knowing how much he violated my classmates. #creep.' Then Klien reconsidered. She had never really verified the stories she'd heard. So she deleted the tweet and texted former classmate Jael Simonson-Tunick, asking if she remembered who Veitch had allegedly assaulted. When Simonson-Tunick got that text, she says, 'I immediately felt a pang of rage and shock.' Like Klien, she hadn’t really known Veitch at Sarah Lawrence but knew his reputation. 'Something in me snapped,' she says. Simonson-Tunick reached out to trusted college friends, asking to be connected with anyone who had a story to tell about Veitch’s time at Sarah Lawrence. Thus began an extraordinary organizing effort that ultimately led more than a dozen women to come forward, first in a Facebook group and then in interviews with THR." Veitch declined to comment, "but a source close to him says he denies all allegations," reports Masters. "He is not a household name, but his star has been ascending. His 2016 TED talk about dealing with spam emails was viewed nearly 62 million times. A 2017 appearance on Conan went viral, with almost 27 million YouTube views. His bit about trolling spammers turned into a deal with Hachette; his book was released in June. In February, Quibi announced that he would be host of a talk show featuring celebrity guests (Regina Hall, Lisa Kudrow)." Responding to the allegations, HBO Max tells People it plans to remove Veitch's special from its platform.