Suspended Grammys chief Deborah Dugan alleges sexual misconduct in Recording Academy
Deborah Dugan, the chief executive and president of the Recording Academy, which organises the Grammy awards, who was suspended last week after a misconduct allegation, has countered with her own 44-page legal complaint five days before 2020’s awards ceremony. In it, she alleges sexual harassment and voting corruption in the company. Her most serious claim is the academy was aware of allegations that her predecessor Neil Portnow, who was chief executive from 2002 to 2019, raped an unnamed female recording artist.
The filing written by her legal team reads that after she was hired, “Ms Dugan was hauled into a conference room and told – for the very first time – that a foreign recording artist (and member of the academy) had accused Mr Portnow of raping her following a performance that she gave at Carnegie Hall. The news was presented to Ms Dugan as though the board had just learned of the allegation. In reality, they were well aware of the allegation at the time Ms Dugan agreed to take on the CEO position, but never told her.” The allegation of assault was, she was told, “the real reason his contract was not renewed” in 2019. She claims she was nonetheless pressured by the then chairman John Poppo to rehire Portnow as a consultant with a $750,000 salary.
At the time, Portnow did not give reasons for stepping down as chief executive, and only said that he wanted to create a smooth transition for his successor. The end of his tenure had been heavily marred by comments he made in 2018, in the wake of very few female winners at that year’s Grammys, that female creatives needed to “step up” if they were to succeed.
Portnow has not yet responded to the rape allegation. The academy released a statement dismissing Dugan’s accusations. It reads in part: “It is curious that Ms Dugan never raised these grave allegations until a week after legal claims were made against her personally by a female employee.”
Dugan was placed on administrative leave last week, following the allegation of misconduct. A memo from the interim chief executive to academy members earlier this week gave further details, saying Dugan fostered a “toxic and intolerable” work environment and was “abusive and bullying”. Academy board member Christine Albert told the New York Times that Dugan’s leadership style had clashed with the academy, saying: “What we expected was change without chaos.”
In Dugan’s filing, she calls the academy’s allegation that she asked for $22m to resign “flat out false”. A further statement from her lawyer Douglas Wigdor alleges she was offered “millions of dollars to drop all of this and leave the academy”, and was put on leave when she refused, and says Dugan “repeatedly raised concerns throughout her entire tenure at the academy”, not just now following her suspension.
Elsewhere in her legal filing, made to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Dugan alleges that she was sexually harassed by entertainment lawyer Joel Katz, who is general counsel for the academy. She says he “acted extremely inappropriately” during a business dinner in May 2019, repeatedly remarking on her physical appearance and attempting to kiss her and “woo her”. Katz’s lawyer said her recollection was “false and Mr Katz categorically and emphatically denies her version of that evening”.
She also alleges corruption in the academy’s voting procedures. She gives the example of a song longlisted for the 2019 song of the year award, which was ranked 18th place out of 20 songs by the nominations committee, but which nevertheless ended up on the shortlist as the artist behind the song sat on the committee and was represented by a member of the Grammys board. She alleges that the nomination committees added in artists who weren’t selected by the academy’s voting pool.
Her complaint says that the Grammys board “has decided to shroud the process in secrecy, and ultimately controls, in large part, who is nominated” and “manipulates the nominations process to ensure that certain songs or albums are nominated when the producer of the Grammys [Ken Ehrlich] wants a particular song performed on the show”. The academy has not responded to these specific allegations beyond the aforementioned dismissal of Dugan’s filing.
Dugan’s filing says that the alleged behaviour was made possible by a “boys’ club mentality” in the company. In an accompanying statement, her legal team said those accused used “tactics reminiscent of those deployed by individuals defending Harvey Weinstein”.
The EEOC will now work to determine whether Dugan’s allegations have merit, and whether her suspension discriminates against her. Whatever the outcome, it is a damaging episode for a company that was trying to rehabilitate its image: as well as criticism of its bias towards male winners, artists including Frank Ocean, Kanye West and Drake have criticised the awards in recent years over a lack of support for non-white musicians in major categories.
In 2018, Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff Tina Tchen was hired to head up a taskforce to examine how the Grammys operate. Its final report, published in December, proposed greater diversity in academy members and changes to voting procedures.
The 2020 Grammy awards take place on Sunday, with Lizzo earning the most nominations with eight, ahead of Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X with six each.
