A.J. Calloway, a host on the syndicated entertainment news show ‘Extra,’ was suspended Saturday as his parent company investigates sexual misconduct allegations.
Warner Bros. said it had investigated prior accusations against Calloway and found no suggestion of workplace misconduct.
‘Upon becoming aware of allegations of sexual misconduct against AJ Calloway, we began an internal review to determine whether there had been any misconduct by Mr. Calloway on Extra and whether any employee of the show had been the victim of any such misconduct,’ they said in a statement to the DailyMail.com. ‘To date, we have found nothing to suggest that Mr. Calloway has ever engaged in workplace misconduct.
‘In light of additional allegations brought to our attention, we are expanding our ongoing inquiries, and Mr. Calloway has been suspended pending further review. We take such allegations very seriously and are committed to doing everything we can to ensure a safe and inclusive workplace for all of our employees.’
Calloway’s lawyer, Lisa E. Davis, said her client vehemently denies ever assaulting anyone and looks forward to clearing his name.
‘Mr. Calloway maintains that these unsubstantiated allegations are patently false,’ she said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
Last June, model Sil Lai Abrams came forward with the Hollywood Reporter and shared that she was raped by Russell Simmons and assaulted by the 44-year-old host.
She shared in an update that since coming forward, nine other women have come forward and shared their stories about the former 106 & Park host.
‘I spoke to these women, and they’re terrified of coming forward… So when I was writing my Huffington Post piece about the impact coming forward has had on my life, I emailed Blake Bryant, the head of publicity at Warner Bros. Television asking him why they haven’t issued any statements,’ she explained to the Daily Beast.
‘I let him know that I’d spoken with multiple women and there are multiple alleged victims of A.J. I was thinking, Warner Bros. has got to say something, I mean, what are they going to do? I got no response.’
And two more women spoke to The Daily Beast claiming Calloway sexually assaulted them.
One accuser, who wished to remain anonymous, shared that she went forward with her allegations on December 24 to the West Orange Police Department in New Jersey. She said that she was told by the authorities that they would reach out to her for an interview.
The woman shared her story with Abrams ‘because the first person I told didn’t believe me, and I just happened to Google to see if anybody else had the same experience with the same person and her name popped up. So she was actually the first person I told after the actual incident who actually believed me.’
She went to police ‘when I found out I wasn’t the only one.’
‘I’m terrified about coming forward,’ another woman, going by the name Talia, said. ‘I don’t want it to affect my future, everything that I’ve worked hard for—and A.J. is someone that would try to do that.’
Talia explained that she and Calloway knew each other through a mutual friend and first connected on social media.
‘He started messaging me in 2011,’ she said. ‘He wanted to take me out to dinner and I kept telling him no, I wouldn’t entertain his advances.’
Talia shared that at the time of their fling, she was in her early 20s while Calloway was well into his late thirties.
She added: ‘After him asking me out repeatedly I agreed to go, because it got to a point where he started to get upset that I was actually not willing to go out with him. He was kind of like, do you know who I am?’
The woman claims that when they finally went out to dinner, Calloway drank heavily and invited ‘a group of people to his home to party.’ Talia rode in Calloway’s vehicle.
At Calloway’s home, the host ‘made everyone put their belongings on the kitchen table’ and made everyone go downstairs to the entertainment room.
Talia recalled that Calloway finally walked the other guests out his home at around three in the morning.
‘We started making out. And I knew I wasn’t having sex—I knew adamantly I wasn’t having sex because I won’t have sex unless I’m in a committed relationship,’ she detailed. ‘So, you know, even though I’m kissing him, I’m thinking, this is the first date, we’re just making out a little bit—because I’ve never even had sex on the first night with someone.
‘Even though he’s tall and he looks skinny, he has some weight to him. He’s heavy, you know, and he put his whole body weight on top of me. He kept trying to open my blouse. He really was going for my skirt, and I was literally pulling my skirt down because I was not going to allow him to go any further.
‘And he thought it was a game or something because he kept laughing and giggling and I’m like, no, stop, stop. And the more I said ‘stop’ the more he got aggressive, and that’s when I started to realize, oh my god, this is serious. Like, he’s really going to try and force me to have sex with him.
‘I just remember trying to push him off of me, and this went on for 40 minutes straight. Me attempting to push him off of me and fighting to keep him from taking my clothes off. Eventually he got tired, and I think it’s because he was so intoxicated—it was wearing him out.
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SOURCE: Daily Mail – Matthew Wright
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