John Legend’s Manager Writes About Diddy Yacht Party, ‘Toxic’ Music Biz

In light of allegations of sex trafficking to Sean “DiddyCombs, Johannes Legend‘s longtime manager Ty Stiklorius has written one opinion for The New York Times which takes an in-depth look at the music industry’s “pervasive predatory culture,” which “actively encouraged sexual misconduct and exploited the lives and bodies of those hoping to make it in the music industry.”

The piece, by Emmy Award-winning producer Stiklorius, founder of Friends at Work, a management company that collaborates with Legend, among others, is titled ‘The Music Industry Is Toxic. After P. Diddy we can clean it up.”

Stiklorius begins by describing a yacht party in St. Barts she attended 27 years ago, hosted by Combs, where she says she was able to convince an associate of the rapper to unlock a bedroom door and escape. (The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Diddy’s reps for comment.) At the time, she says she didn’t realize exactly what she had talked her way into. “It was an indicator,” Stiklorius said. “Power is concentrated in the hands of kingmakers: wealthy, entitled, almost always male gatekeepers who control almost every door leading to success and who, without consequence, can use their power to abuse young women and young men.”

Stiklorius reveals that women “have not been safe in recording studios, on tour buses, in green rooms or in offices” in the music world. And it’s not an industry bug, she says. “It’s an important feature.”

“After P. Diddy’s arrest, some observers wondered whether the industry would finally face a ‘#MeToo’ reckoning,” Stiklorius writes. “But reducing the scourge of sexual coercion, harassment and violence to a few infamous individuals – be it Harvey Weinstein or R. Kelly – suggests that they are outliers and obscures the more destructive, stubborn, systemic rot that the music industry had infected.”

She argues that there is hope and that these gatekeepers have less power than they used to: “They may still be dangling the keys to success for young artists, but the locks are changing.”

Stiklorius refers to the Gen Z star Chappell Roanwho was forced to fight with her label to release the hit ‘Pink Pony Club’. The label dropped her when marketing plans failed to produce hits, but Roan moved back to her hometown and released music independently, eventually building a social media fan base that she used to leverage new distribution and financial support. “In this process, she demonstrated a new truth: the days of the gatekeepers are numbered,” Stiklorius writes.

She continues: “My early experiences with predators, and the experiences that enabled them, almost led me to give up the music business. A few years after the boat incident, while 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 refused. … 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 artist was that Johannes Legend and twenty years later I am still his manager and partner in multiple business ventures. It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be part of a different business and culture model.”

There is a way forward to turn the page on this culture of exploitation and abuse, Stiklorius concludes in the op-ed. She writes: “How many other women had early experiences similar to mine and abandoned their ambition to become an artist – let alone a recording engineer, producer or executive? How many women were coerced, abused, assaulted and silenced on their way to their dreams – imprisoned by men who controlled access and made us believe the key to the kingdom was a key card to their hotel room?

The producer concludes by saying that the industry owes it to the countless survivors of sexual assault and misconduct, “who have suffered in silence to uncover the truth… We owe it to the next generation of creators to make the company to create something worthy of the art they create.”

Just this week, Combs was accused in one of two lawsuits filed Monday drugging and sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in a New York City hotel room in 2005. In the second lawsuit, the jailed hip-hop mogul is accused of similarly assaulting a 17-year-old potential contestant on the reality TV series. Making the tape in 2008.

They were filed in the New York State Supreme Court and are the latest in a wave of 120 lawsuits in which prosecutors allege they were sexually abused by Combs at parties and gatherings over the past two decades.

The musician’s lawyers have said: “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the legal process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually abused or trafficked anyone – male or female, adult or minor.”