In December, comedian Beth Stelling accused a former partner of abusing and raping her. Stelling shared photos on Instagram of bruises on her arms and legs, allegedly from her ex.
Though Stelling didn't name her ex in the post, others have identified him as comedian Cale Hartmann. Hartmann deactivated his social media accounts after Stelling shared her story, but he's now taken to Facebook to defend himself against the allegations.
"I was incredibly hurt to see my ex-girlfriend had made public accusations across all of her social media platforms that tell a story so far beyond the truth," Hartmann wrote in a Facebook post. "The severity of her accusations are false and extremely harmful. I'm not sure she realizes the irreparable harm of her actions."
Hartmann also argued that there is "no evidence beyond her word" of what happened between the pair. "My career and life do not deserve to be taken away without some basic level of due process just because of an allegation on the Internet," he added.
In her initial Instagram post, Stelling wrote that another one of Hartmann's ex-girlfriends had come to her with a similar story of abuse.
"I am not alone; unfortunately I'm in a line of smart, funny women who experienced this from the same man in our L.A. comedy community," Stelling wrote. "I couldn't stay in our relationship waiting for it to happen again and I won't keep it a secret any longer so that a future woman has a chance of avoiding it."
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