FT defends Adjaye’s sexual misconduct report after CEO calls it ‘unfair’

The Financial Times has said it is maintaining its investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against David Adjaye, describing it as “carefully prepared”, following criticism of its reporting by Lucy Tilley, CEO of Adjaye Associates London.

Tilley called the Financial Times (FT) report “really unfair” and said “there are two sides to every story” in an interview with British architecture publication Building Design (BD).

In response to Tilley’s remarks, the FT made clear that it was maintaining its investigation.

“Our investigation was carefully prepared,” an FT spokesperson told Dezeen. “We stand by our report.”

Tilley criticises FT reporting

Published last year, the FT investigation revealed accounts of Adjaye’s alleged sexual misconduct towards three women in the Adjaye Associates office in Accra.

Adjaye has denied the allegations. He said at the time: “I absolutely reject any allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse or criminal wrongdoing. These allegations are false, upsetting to me and my family and go against everything I stand for.”

In its original article, the Financial Times described the methods used to corroborate the three women’s allegations. According to the Financial Times, it included “interviewing colleagues, family members and friends whom the women had trusted, as well as examining contemporaneous emails, documents and text messages.”

However, in the interview with BD, Tilley claimed that the reporting was unfair.

“There are two sides to every story, and I have seen the evidence provided to the FT by David,” she said.

“That’s not what the FT described, and it’s really unfair,” she added.

“Shocked is an understatement”

Tilley said no legal action has been taken against Adjaye.

“There is no legal case against him and yet anyone can write in the media whatever they want about someone,” she said.

“Shocked is an understatement. You can’t just write something about someone and erase their reputation through a media trial.”

According to the FT, the three women are represented by “an organisation specialising in human rights and whistleblowing”, but Dezeen is not aware of any legal proceedings being brought against Adjaye to date.

According to the FT’s investigation, one of the three women reported an assault that allegedly took place in South Africa to Ghanaian police in mid-2019, but was told that the police did not have jurisdiction to conduct a criminal investigation in another country. Later, in 2021, she filed a criminal complaint with police in South Africa. Police confirmed to the FT that they had received the complaint but did not provide further information.

“This happens in many practices”

Adjaye is one of the world’s best-known architects, awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2021. Following the allegations, his studio has been excluded from several projects, including a campus for the Africa Institute and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool.

During the studio restructuring earlier this year, Tilley was appointed CEO of the London studio, Kofi Bio CEO of the Accra office and Pascale Sablan CEO of the New York studio. Adjaye became executive chairman of the group.

Although Adjaye denies allegations of sexual misconduct, he has admitted to having relationships with each of the three women included in the FT investigation while he was married.

While admitting the behaviour was unprofessional, Tilley suggested Adjaye had been unfairly targeted by the media.

“Look, this happens in a lot of firms,” she said. “Yes, it’s inappropriate. Yes, you shouldn’t have relationships with staff members. But, you know, it doesn’t just happen in architecture. It happens all over the world.”

“We can all judge whether this is inappropriate or not, but why doesn’t the FT write about other architects who do it?” she added.

“Every architect I’ve met since this happened asks me why the media chose David.”

Second interview with Adjaye Associates CEO in a week

Tilley is the second Adjaye Associates’ CEO will speak out about the allegations and their impact in interviews with architecture media in the coming days.

The BD interview was published the same week as an interview with Pascale Sablan, CEO of Adjaye Associates New York, published in The Architect’s Newspaper.

In this interview, Sablan expressed his surprise at these allegations.

“I did my due diligence before joining the team, and so when these allegations came out, they came as a big surprise to me,” she told The Architect’s Newspaper.

“Not only was that not what had been communicated to me before, it was also not my lived experience. And I can only speak from my experience, right? I wasn’t there.”

“He’s not that kind of person.”

This is the first time that representatives from Adjaye Associates have spoken directly about the allegations against the company’s founder.

Adjaye himself has not responded in detail to the allegations, other than his initial denial to the FT. Tilley said he had kept silent to avoid adding anything to the story.

“When you’re accused of something you didn’t do, you want the world to know you didn’t do it,” Tilley said. “You desperately want to tell people, ‘I didn’t do that.’”

“He’s not that kind of person,” she continued. “So imagine how he feels, or how his family feels, not being able to give his side of the story.”