Kevin Clash, Voice of Elmo, Has Been Exonerated

I was going to try to rewrite this, but The Superficial put this very eloquently:

Kevin Clash was a young black man from the projects of Baltimore who only had one dream: To work in children’s television like his hero Captain Kangaroo. 

Through hard work, dedication and talent, he found himself working for Sesame Street Workshop and soon turned a puppet nobody knew what to do with into the most popular children’s character of our generation. A character that to any child from almost as soon as they can see until three-years-old is like staring into the face of God every single morning on their television screens. 

But then in 2012, the world learned what only a few of Kevin’s close friends and colleagues knew: He’s gay. But instead of finding out from an inspiring coming out story, they learned from one Sheldon Stephens who claimed he had an underage relationship with Kevin. 

While this turned out to be bullshit, Kevin made the unfortunate mistake of paying Sheldon to publicly state his accusations were false instead of just disappearing into the woodwork after his lawyer quit leaving this story up in the air. This prompted three other accusers to come forward after suddenly remembering they had underage sex with Kevin, too, despite repeatedly changing their stories to okay, there wasn’t sex, and lying about their ages. 

But the damage was already done, so to protect the beloved company that had helped realize his dreams, Kevin resigned from Sesame Workshop so he could settle these matters in court without tarnishing Sesame Street. And settle them he fucking did. Not only were all three lawsuits thrown out of court, but Radar reports that they've now been dismissed by the United States Court of Appeals: 

"The Court of Appeals argued the alleged victims “failed to provide any reason why [they] were unable to discover their injuries prior to 2012,” court documents state. The Court of Appeals found the arguments to be “without merit,” affirming the New York judge’s previous decision to dismiss all three suits."

Last year I watched a documentary called 'Being Elmo' about Kevin Clash's life and path to becoming one of the most beloved puppeteers in our lifetime. It was amazing and so much of it made me question these horrible accusations he was facing. I'm really happy to hear that his name was cleared of all these charges. TWICE. Unfortunately, we lost him to all this crap, but at least his name is clear now.

Honestly, I think it's on Netflix still, watch it if you have the chance. It was great.