Peloton removes viral Chris Noth advert after sexual assault allegations

Peloton eliminated a viral advert starring Chris Noth from its social media accounts after sexual assault allegations towards the “Intercourse and the Metropolis” actor surfaced Thursday.

“Each single sexual assault accusation have to be taken significantly,” Peloton stated in an announcement. “We had been unaware of those allegations once we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot” of the present. “As we search to be taught extra, now we have stopped selling this video and archived associated social posts.”

The allegations of sexual misconduct appeared Thursday in an article in The Hollywood Reporter. The article stated two girls who approached the publication individually, months aside, and who have no idea one another advised The Hollywood Reporter that promotions and press experiences for the brand new “Intercourse and the Metropolis” sequel introduced again painful recollections of the incidents. One purportedly occurred in Los Angeles in 2004 and the opposite allegedly came about in New York in 2015.

Since The Hollywood Reporter gave the ladies pseudonyms to guard their privateness, CNBC couldn’t contact them for remark.

Noth denied that he assaulted the 2 girls, saying the “encounters had been consensual.”

“It is troublesome to not query the timing of those tales popping out,” he stated in an announcement. “I do not know for sure why they’re surfacing now, however I do know this: I didn’t assault these girls.”

The premiere episode of the HBO Max sequence “And Simply Like That” introduced Noth’s beloved character, Mr. Large, again into the highlight. Large was depicted within the “Intercourse and the Metropolis” spinoff dying of a coronary heart assault after taking a 45-minute Peloton class.

After the episode aired, Peloton’s inventory tumbled, prompting the cycle maker to problem an announcement that its health tools can enhance folks’s bodily well being. The model then partnered with actor Ryan Reynolds’ advertising agency Most Effort to supply a parody advert. Within the spot, Noth, as Mr. Large, wakes up and tells Peloton teacher Jess King: “I really feel nice. We could take one other journey? Life is simply too quick to not.”

Peloton stated it had created the spot in simply 48 hours in a studio in New York Metropolis after the response to the present. The discharge of the advert was initially constructive for the corporate, and shares of Peloton inventory rebounded. On Thursday, Peloton shares had been buying and selling up almost 4%. After a number of risky classes over latest days, the corporate’s inventory stays down almost 74% 12 months up to now, placing its market worth at $13.05 billion.

Peloton has declined to touch upon how a lot it spent to retain Noth and Reynolds to assist on the advert’s manufacturing. On Thursday, nonetheless, Reynolds additionally eliminated the commercial from his social media.

“The accusations towards me made by people I met years, even many years, in the past are categorically false,” Noth stated in his assertion. “These tales might’ve been from 30 years in the past or 30 days in the past — no at all times means no — that may be a line I didn’t cross.”