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Mike Richards has announced he won't be hosting Jeopardy!, after questions have persisted about how the show's executive producer was chosen for the coveted role. 

Richards has been scrutinized over earlier allegations of a hostile work environment, as well as inappropriate comments he allegedly made about women on a podcast that he once hosted.

"I will be stepping down as host effective immediately," Richards said in an email to staff that was provided to NPR Friday.

"It pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy! as we look to start a new chapter," he said, adding that he had been honored to be tapped to fill the role that was defined by the late Alex Trebek.

Controversy intensified when an old podcast resurfaced

Richards stepped down from his new role just a week after Sony Pictures Television said he would become the new 

, with actor Mayim Bialik also named the host of a Jeopardy! primetime series and spinoffs. 

, particularly after the venerable franchise attracted a wide range of candidates who guest-hosted during a highly publicized search for Trebek's replacement. 

Richards came under added scrutiny this week, when 

 that from 2013 to 2014, when Richards hosted a podcast called The Randumb Show, he "repeatedly used offensive language and disparaged women's bodies."

The podcast had been created as a look behind the curtains of The Price Is Right show Richards was then helping to lead. The podcast was taken down shortly after the website reached out for comment about it, and Richards issued an apology, in a statement that also sought to do damage control. 

"It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago," Richards was 

. "Looking back now, there is no excuse, of course, for the comments I made on this podcast and I am deeply sorry."

 "The podcast was intended to be a series of irreverent conversations between longtime friends who had a history of joking around," he said, adding that the results were "not acceptable."

Read Richards' message to the show's staff

Here's Richards' full internal note to staff, which the show says should serve as his public statement: 

Bill Chappell

Author

Richards has been scrutinized over earlier allegations of a hostile work environment, as well as inappropriate comments he allegedly made about women on a podcast that he once hosted.


Mike Richards resigns as host of Jeopardy!

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