‘Sesame Street’: Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash in the clear; accuser recants claims

Thankfully for “Sesame Street,” their one-day publicity nightmare is now at an end. Only a matter of 24 hours (give or take) after allegations were fired against the voice actor behind Elmo in Kevin Clash that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor, the man who came forward with these claims is now recanting them.

In a statement, an attorney for the man, whose name was never revealed publicly, had the following to say in backing up Clash’s already-announced explanation that the relationship was between two consenting adults, and there were no laws broken  over the course of their time together:

“[The accuser] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship … He will have no further comment on the matter.”

Meanwhile, Clash also released the following statement about this news:

“I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I will not discuss it further.”

Even though this incident seems to now be over, Clash may have a hard time still dealing with the fallout that these allegations were made to begin with. While “Sesame Street” has already announced that Elmo will live on regardless of the results of this case, there is no word on when the puppeteer (who was on a leave of absence to deal with the claims) will return to work; after all, the hardest part of this for Clash may be that before this case even came to light, most people just knew Elmo for the character and not the man responsible for pulling the strings for so many years.

Are you glad that this matter already seems to be at an end?