John Legend’s longtime manager recalls ‘terrifying situation’ at Diddy Party

• John Legend’s longtime manager and old college friend Ty Stiklorius has spoken out about the “toxic” music industry in a candid speech after two decades in the business. New York Times article
• The Friends at Work founder recalled attending Sean “Diddy” Combs’ yacht party in St. Barts 27 years ago when she was a fresh graduate
• “To this day I can’t remember how I managed to talk my way out of that terrifying situation,” she said, revealing that she was “led into a bedroom by a man” during the event.

Johannes Legend‘s longtime manager talks about her own experiences in the ‘toxic’ music industry.

In one New York Times piece entitled “The Music Industry Is Toxic. After P. Diddy, We Can Clean It Up” published on Thursday, October 31, Ty Stiklorius – Founder of the Management Company, Friends at workwhich works with many artists including Legend, 45 – said she is hopeful for a new beginning in the industry after the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct in return for Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Recalling her own experience attending one of Combs’ New Year’s Eve hunting parties in St. Barts 27 years ago with her brother, Stiklorius — who had just graduated at the time — said she was “sent into a bedroom by a man.” She added that she is still “not sure who he was or if he had any connection to Mr. Combs.”

PEOPLE reached out to a representative for Combs but did not immediately receive a response.

“To this day, I can’t remember how I talked my way out of that terrifying situation. Maybe my nervous chatter: ‘My brother is on this boat and he’s probably looking for me!’ – convinced him to unlock the bedroom door and let me go,” Stiklorius, 49, wrote, adding that at the time she assumed her “experience was an anomaly” and that it was “just one man feeling bad behaved at a drunken party.”

Now, she said, she knows her experience was not unusual in the music industry.

“After twenty years as an executive in the music industry… (I know now) what happened that night was not an aberration – it was an indicator of a pervasive culture in the music industry that actively promoted sexual misconduct and harmed the lives and bodies of those exploited people.” hoping to make it in the business,” she wrote.

Stiklorius added that her “early experiences with predators, and those who enabled them, almost made me give up the music business,” but her friend Legend helped change that.

“A few years after the boating incident, while I was working on my MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, I attended a dinner where a senior music director slid his key card under the table toward me, an unsubtle invitation to his hotel room .I declined,” she continued.

She added, “I only persisted in the industry because an old college friend who was starting to find success as an artist contacted me in 2005.”

That friend was Legend, who she noted has now been leading for 20 years.

“It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be part of a different business and culture model,” she wrote.

In addition to Legend, Stiklorius’ company Friends at Work also represents artists Charlie Put and The National. She and Legend have also launched companies JL Ventures and the production company Get Lifted Film Co. together over the years.

Stiklorius questioned in the NY times piece: “How many other women had early experiences similar to mine and abandoned their ambition to become artists – let alone recording engineers, producers or executives? How many women were coerced, abused, assaulted and silenced on their way to their dreams – captured by men who controlled access and made us believe the key to the kingdom was a key card to their hotel room?”

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She is hopeful that the industry can now “turn the page on a culture of exploitation and abuse.”

Stiklorius emphasized that the “days of the gatekeepers” in the company “are numbered,” Stiklorius concluded. “We owe it to the countless survivors of sexual assault and misconduct who have suffered in silence to uncover the truth, encourage people to share their stories, and hold perpetrators accountable. We owe it to the next generation of creators to make the company something worthy of the art they create.”