YouTuber Cody Ko’s podcast network TMG Studios announced he will be stepping down from day-to-day operations at the company, following allegations that he had sex with the influencer and podcast host Tana Mongeau when she was 17 and he was 25.
“As we enter into this next phase of the studio, we wanted to let you know that Cody will not be involved in the day-to-day operations at TMG Studios,” reads the statement, which was signed by Ko and co-founder Noel Miller. “What has transpired over the past few weeks is a personal issue for him, and Cody wants to remove any effect this is having on your professional and personal lives and the work you and our other hosts have done to make TMG Studios so successful.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The statement, reviewed by TIME, was released behind a paywall available only to TMG Studios’ paying subscribers on Friday night.
Miller, who co-hosts “Tiny Meat Gang Podcast” with Ko, will now be the creative lead for the studio. The six shows under the network will put out new episodes “in the coming weeks” after a brief, seemingly unplanned hiatus.
Ko has not commented on the allegations, raised in May by Mongeau during a live recording of her podcast Cancelled. In the show, Mongeau said she slept with Ko when she was 17. Her comment came to wider attention in July, when commentary YouTuber D’Angelo Wallace released a video discussing the situation and asking his viewers to take it seriously. Following Wallace’s video, Ko, who had over 9 million subscribers across five Youtube channels, has lost followers in droves. According to SocialBlade, he’s lost over 270,000 subscribers in the past month.
Representatives for Ko did not return a request for comment. Mongeau previously declined to comment on the story.
As pressure has mounted for Ko to acknowledge Mongeau’s allegation, creators in his orbit are also facing demands to speak out. His wife, Kelsey Kreppel, was inundated with hate comments in her YouTube videos and one of his recent collaborators, Brittany Broski, put out a statement on her Instagram stories. Drew Phillips and Enya Umanzor, the hosts of Emergency Intercom, a podcast TMG Studios recently added to its network, released a statement on Instagram saying they are no longer working with TMG and would produce their show independently.
On July 19, Ko made his first public appearance in Las Vegas as he performed a DJ set at Encore’s Beach Club. Videos of his set began circulating online and he was recorded playing a remix of Justin Bieber’s song, “Sorry.”
