It was probably just an excuse. His ratings were quite low and he was on a constant downward spiral of viewership and popularity. ABC likely didn’t want to get in hot water over a money losing show host who they paid 16,000,000$. from another perspective, imagine a murder was a professed atheist but came from a Muslim family and someone went on mainstream news and said “The Muslims are doing everything they can to lie and say this wasn’t ONE OF THEM!” I can’t imagine they would stay on air.