Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash resigns just as another allegation no one wants to hear about surfaces
Bringing this story and the incipient void to its inevitable conclusion, Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash has resigned from his job at Sesame Street, reaching the decision that his career as a children's entertainer might possibly be compromised by the allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a minor. Sesame Workshop made the announcement via press statement, calling the lawsuit by Clash's accuser, Sheldon Stephens, the subsequent reports of an out-of-court settlement, and Stephens' recent retraction of his recantation "a distraction that none of us want," speaking not only for Clash and Sesame Workshop, but everyone on Earth, everywhere. That distraction, the statement continues, left Clash to decide "he can no longer be effective in his job" that he's held for 28 years. "This is a sad day for Sesame Street," the statement concludes, before trudging off to buy a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, and a container of salty tears.
Perhaps not coincidentally, news of Clash's resignation arrived within minutes of TMZ—who has definitely been the Woodward and Bernstein of making sure that Elmo is forever linked to sex with teenage boys—posting yet another allegation from a second man, now in his 20s, who claims that he and Clash had a sexual relationship when he was just 15, after the two "met on a gay phone chat line back in 2003." This second accuser, Cecil Singleton, has filed his own $5 million lawsuit alleging that Clash spent his days on Sesame Street "preying on teenage boys to satisfy his depraved sexual interests," with Singleton saying he "did not become aware that he had suffered adverse psychological and emotional effects from Kevin Clash's sexual acts and conduct until 2012," coincidentally right after Sheldon Stephens had a similar realization. Anyway, with Clash's resignation, such allegations are no longer expected to affect anyone's mental image of Elmo going forward, unless they read the news and can remember things.