Neil deGrasse Tyson is returning to work at National Geographic after the network completed its investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
Tyson has been away from work on Cosmos: Possible Worlds and StarTalk for months, ever since he faced accusations of physical and verbal sexual harassment last month. According to a new report by Variety, Nat Geo has announced the return of both of Tyson’s shows, without commenting on what its investigation found or how it will be dealt with.
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“StarTalk will return to the air with the remaining 13 episodes in April on National Geographic, and both Fox and National Geographic are committed to finding an air date for Cosmos,” read a statement from the network. “There will be no further comment.”
Both shows have been sitting in uncertain limbo for months as the network investigated the allegations against Tyson. The physicist’s former assistant, Ashely Watson, told reporters from Patheos that he had made sexual advances toward her, in 2018, while they were working on Cosmos together. Watson claimed that the advances ultimately led her to resign from her job.
Meanwhile, Tyson’s colleague Dr. Katelyn N. Allers claimed that he groped her at an event in 2009. Allers works as a professor at Bucknell University.
More women came forward to the outlet, including musician Tchiya Amet El Maat. She claimed that Tyson drugged her, then sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, while they were in graduate school together. Finally, a fourth anonymous accuser said that Tyson made inappropriate comments to her at a museum event in 2010.
Tyson denied El Maat’s accusation altogether. He admitted some fault in the cases of Allers and Watson but claimed that he had been misunderstood and apologized. The physicist addressed the whole scandal in a Facebook post, where he said he welcomed a full investigation.
“In any claim, evidence matters. Evidence always matters. But what happens when it’s just one person’s word against another’s, and the stories don’t agree? That’s when people tend to pass judgment on who is more credible than whom. And that’s when an impartial investigation can best serve the truth – and would have my full cooperation to do so,” he wrote.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds is the third season reboot of the educational show, itself already a revival of Carl Sagan’s classic series. The first season ran on Fox as well as Nat Geo, and now Nat Geo is bringing it back a third time. Meanwhile, StarTalk is Tyson’s long-running talk show, which will resume its fifth season.
Tyson has not responded publicly to the return of his shows at the time of this writing.
