During an interview with CBS Sports’ Brent Brookhouse, WWE executive Paul Levesque denied that Velveteen Dream (Patrick Clark) was kept off television due to a series of allegations.
In April, there was a Reddit post claiming that Clark had interacted inappropriately online with a fan and some of their friends, who the user claimed were all under the age of 18. It promoted Clark to post the following denial of any wrongdoing:
Be assured I did not communicate inappropriately with anyone. A private photo of mine was shared without my consent or knowledge and I am working with a third party to look into this matter.
In speaking to the outlet, Levesque outlined that Clark was off television recovering from a car accident the performer was involved with in June:
You know, in this day today, accusations are made and you take them all very seriously. You look into them the best you can, and you find out what is there and what isn’t. In this situation, [Clark] was also involved in a car accident. That’s what took him off TV. In the moment, all this other stuff happens and you look into it and you find that there is a situation that people bring to everyone’s attention, you look into it and find that it is what it is and there’s nothing there.
Everything that we have done, we are comfortable with him continuing to do what he does and everything else. But he had a car accident. It stemmed down to people thought we removed him from TV for different reasons. We didn’t. He was in a car accident.
Levesque added that once Clark was medically cleared, they moved forward with their plans and reiterated that they didn’t find anything when looking into the allegations.
Clark made his return to NXT programming on last week’s episode as a mystery participant in a three-way match with KUSHIDA and Cameron Grimes. It was his first appearance since the Backlot Brawl match with Adam Cole at the NXT TakeOver: In Your House event that aired on June 7th.
