A documentary series that was set to take viewers inside the Ku Klux Klan has been canceled by A&E after the network discovered that some of the show’s producers had made cash payments to participants on the show.

The eight-part series, “Escaping the KKK,” promised an up-close look at high-ranking Klan members and their families, but it had prompted wide outcry since news about the show came out last Sunday.

For a network best known for shows like “Hoarders” and “Intervention,” the K.K.K. series represented a strikingly complicated and politically charged endeavor, and fell into a roiling national debate about the potential glamorization of racism and bigotry that has grown only louder since the presidential election.

The show’s producers had tried to calm the backlash in recent days, changing the title of the series from “Generation KKK,” with its vaguely romantic undertones, to “Escaping the KKK: A Documentary Series Exposing Hate in America.” They also announced a partnership with Color of Change, a civil rights group that had expressed concern about the show, to develop some of the program’s segments and to provide more context. The network defended the show, which it said would “expose and combat racism and hatred in all its forms.”