Actor Who Voices Elmo Leaves Sesame Street in Sex Scandal

We have nothing even slightly snarky to say about this: Kevin Clash, the voice actor who turned Elmo into the most beloved of all Sesame Street characters, has left the show amid allegations he had sex with an underage, 16-year-old teen boy. Clash admits that he has had a relationship with the accuser, now 23, but denies that anything happened until the boy was of legal age. “It was between two consenting adults and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not,” Clash said. The young man has hired Harrisburg-based Andreozzi & Associates, which represented one of Jerry Sandusky’s victims, to pursue the claim. Sesame Workshop says it stands by Clash, and we really don’t want that particular institution to suffer Penn State’s fate. But what’s the right response here? It it time to hide all the Elmo toys before the kids get home from school? [Gawker]