‘Press your whole palm into mine, extend your two fingers, find my pulse.’ He had taken off his boots and was wearing a wife beater. “Keep in mind, this is a self-proclaimed ‘science guy’ who all of a sudden wanted to establish a ‘spirit connection’ by feeling each other’s pulses and staring into each other’s eyeballs. “My first thoughts were, ‘Wow, he’s gaslighting me,’” says Watson. She was also deeply troubled by Tyson’s so-called Facebook mea culpa. She’s since been subjected to heaps of ugly online “vitriol” from strangers, and was saddled with “the guilt of tarnishing the reputation of a show which employed a ton of good-hearted people who put honest work into the project, along with tearing something down that's supposed to be educational and progressive.” But she spoke out, she says, because she believes Tchiya Amet and felt she was “the closest chance she had to having a reliable ‘character witness.’”
I always knew ‘the show would go on,’ and that ‘due process’ in this case would be a steaming pile of bullshit.”Ĭoming forward wasn’t easy for Watson. “I never expected the ‘investigation’ to vindicate me from being called an attention hungry liar who had ‘asked for it’- Cosmos was a multi-million dollar production and I was a lowly local assistant who made $800 a week. None of the people I gave contact info for were ever contacted by these companies.”
I gave them both lengthy lists of extremely reliable people who could corroborate my story, text messages from that time, emails NDT had sent to me, etc.
(When asked to provide any information on the results of their investigations-which they have yet to do-or to address the following claims by Watson, all three declined comment for this story.)Īccording to Watson, the so-called “investigations” Tyson was referring to consisted of the following: “I had one 30-minute sit-down with a Fox HR representative and a 45 minute-hour sit-down with a man from a private company. He argued that Watson was known for giving on-set hugs, that his “Native American handshake” was a common practice of his, and that his intent with the “just want more” line was to “express restrained but genuine affection.”Īfter The Daily Beast published my contentious interview with Tyson, Watson reached out to thank me for pressing the scientist on his past allegations, and took issue with Tyson’s insistence that he’d been cleared by the investigations conducted by Fox, National Geographic, and the producers of Cosmos. Tyson, for his part, released a rambling screed on Facebook defending himself from three of the four allegations against him-which included one other allegation of inappropriate touching by Katelyn Allers, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell, and Thchiya Amet El Maat’s accusation that Tyson drugged and raped her while the two were grad students at the University of Texas in the ’80s.
#Tchia amet tv#
The next day, Watson says she confronted Tyson about the inappropriate overtures, and in that meeting he told her over and over that she’d never rise to the level of TV producer because her looks were too “distracting.” Watson proceeded to report the behavior to a supervisor, and resigned from her post. Speaking to Patheos’ David McAfee, Watson alleges that Tyson was prone to making “misogynistic comments,” but it was one encounter in particular that left her shaken, and was evidence, she says, of his “predatory tendencies.” Our back and forth mainly concerned the case of Ashley Watson, a former assistant on Cosmos assigned to Tyson who accused him of sexually harassing her during the final days of production on the series, which premiered Monday, March 9.
Tyson was indignant, repeatedly claiming that he’s grateful for “due process,” that I’m “not the investigator”-and therefore have no right to question him on the matter-and that “investigations were conducted” that essentially cleared him. After exchanging some pleasantries, and probing the famed astrophysicist’s thoughts on the rapid spread of the coronavirus, our discussion shifted to the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct that have been made against him.
#Tchia amet series#
The talk was timed to the return of his acclaimed National Geographic series Cosmos. Last week, I sat down with Neil deGrasse Tyson in his office at the Museum of Natural History.
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