SILICON Valley actor Thomas Middleditch has been accused of groping a woman at a now-closed Goth nightclub known for “rituals and secrecy”.
The 39-year-old comedian is said to have made “lewd sexual” comments to patron Hannah Harding and her girlfriend before making unwanted sexual advances inside Cloak & Dagger in October 2019, the LA Times reported.
According to Harding, Middleditch, who plays Richard Hendricks in HBO’s Silicon Valley, approached her on the dance floor of the secret members-only club.
Harding, who was then 21, says Middleditch made a number of sexual remarks to her, but she turned down his advances.
However, the comedian reportedly continued to pursue her, before groping her in front of her friends and several employees, including the club’s operations manager, Kate Morgan.
Morgan says she told her bosses, club co-founders Adam Bravin and Michael Patterson, to kick Middleditch out and ban him, however she says she wasn’t taken seriously.
“I felt like they dismissed it,” she said to the Times. “I told Adam that he needed to listen, that this was not OK.”
The actor, who is currently starring in the CBS sitcom, B Positive, later direct messaged Harding on Instagram. The pair had previously met in Cloak & Dagger weeks prior.
“Hannah I had no idea my actions were that weird for you … I know you probably want to just put me on blast as a monster,” Middleditch wrote.
“I don’t expect you to want to be my friend or anything … I am so ashamed I made you uncomfortable,” he continued.
Harding claims she witnessed Middleditch grope another woman on the same night, but when she complained to the club’s co-owner she was told she must’ve been mistaken.
“Adam called me ‘to make sure and get a second opinion on him’ because they didn’t trust my story in the first place,” Harding said.
Representatives for Middleditch declined to comment to the Times. A Sun.com request for comment has not yet been returned.
Harding is one of 10 women, including four former employees, who have accused the founders of the since-shuttered Clock & Dagger, located in the back of Hollywood’s Pig ‘N Whistle bar, of ignoring sexual misconduct.
A typical evening at the Goth bar featured a cast of experimental artists performing strange, sexually charged ceremonies.
Invitations to the club were coveted to allow its exclusive members, which included DJs, actors and musicians, to revel safely away from the prying eyes of the general public.
The 10 women say Bravin and Patterson “cared more about famous people at their club than women’s safety.”
Guests were reportedly warned, “If you speak of anything you have seen or heard here, you will lose [your membership]. If you see or hear anyone else speaking of what they saw or heard, let us know. Do you understand?”
Bravin and Patterson headhunted prospective members themselves, who were later welcomed with a robed initiation ritual.
The dress code for the club – themed around LA’s Goth scene of the 1980s – was all black, with no exceptions.
A tattoo artist inked regulars and employees with the club’s abstract knife logo. Photos were all banned from being taken inside.
Morgan, 37, said the co-founders wanted to create a “real cult” through the club.
“We all felt complicit but realized we’d been duped as well,’ Morgan told the Times.
In response, Patterson and Bravin said in a joint emailed statement that their goal was to make Cloak & Dagger “the safest place possible” after its opening in 2015.
“As far as I am aware, they reported every [sexual misconduct] incident to us, and to my knowledge, we dealt with every single issue brought to our attention,” they said.
Middleditch filed for divorce from his wife, Mollie Gates, in May last year.
Mollie Gates cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for filing and has requested spousal support.
The announcement followed just months after Middleditch had revealed in a podcast that he convinced his wife into beginning an open marriage to save their union, shortly after tying-the-knot in 2015.
“Only after I got married was I like, ‘Mollie, I’m sorry, but we have to get nontraditional here’,” Middleditch told Playboy in September 2019.
‘To her credit, instead of saying ‘F**k you, I’m out,’ she was like, ‘Let’s figure this out.’ To be honest, swinging has saved our marriage.”
“We have different speeds, and we argue over it constantly, but it’s better than feeling unheard and alone and that you have to scurry in the shadows. By the way, it’s now called being ‘part of the lifestyle.’ The term swinging is old.”
Cloak & Dagger, meanwhile, permanently closed its doors in January, shortly after Bravin and Patterson were approached by the LA Times regarding the claims from the 10 women.
In the months previous, the club had remained shuttered as a result of the on-going coronavirus pandemic, though the club continued to stream live DJ sets on Facebook.
