Exercise and media company Peloton has pulled its viral advert featuring ‘Sex and the City’ actor Chris Noth after sexual assault allegations from 2004 and 2015 surfaced on Thursday.
“Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously,” Peloton said in a statement explaining the decision on Thursday evening. “We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot” of the popular 90s sitcom, ‘Sex and the City’.
“As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts,” the statement continued.
Allegations that Noth committed sexual assault on two occasions emerged on Thursday in an article by The Hollywood Reporter. It is claimed that the two women approached the publication separately and do not know each other. One of the incidents allegedly dates back to 2004 in Noth’s Los Angeles flat; the other purportedly took place in his New York apartment in 2015.
The Hollywood Reporter, which gave the women pseudonyms to protect their privacy, claimed that the recent revival of the ‘Sex and the City’ reboot and the associated promotions brought back painful memories of the incidents.
Noth, who has also starred in ‘Law & Order’ and ‘The Good Wife’, denies assaulting the two women, saying the “encounters were consensual.”
“It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out,” he said in a statement. “I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said on Thursday evening that there was no current investigation into the allegations. “There is no record of a report being filed at this time. Without a report, there is no investigation,” LAPD Sergeant Bruce Borihanh said.
Earlier in December, Noth’s character, ‘Mr. Big’, was killed off in the HBO revival of “Sex and the City.” He suffered a heart attack after a Peloton bike ride during the first episode. Within 48 hours of the premiere, Peloton released an advert titled, ‘He’s Alive’, featuring Mr. Big, the premise being he faked his death to run off with his Peloton instructor.