Dorothy Carvello, a former A&R executive at WMG-owned Atlantic Records and the author of the memoir Anything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music Industry, filed her request last week, demanding that one of the biggest record label conglomerates supply copies of all complaints filed within the company alleging sexual misconduct.
Carvello is also requesting settlement agreements and non-disclosure agreements Warner entered alongside documents related to any potential investigations Warner conducted over alleged sexual misconduct.
“I want to see what the actual investigations, if any, were against these claims,” Carvello tells Rolling Stone. “We need more transparency from Warner Music Group. I don’t want a board that rubber stamps this behavior.”
For the past several years, Carvello has been pushing for the music industry to take accountability for sexual abuse towards its employees and artists. In April, she launched Face the Music Now, a foundation that aims to give resources to survivors of sexual abuse in the music industry. Carvello’s letter focuses mainly on sexual misconduct allegations, but it also references lawsuits from legacy Warner artists who allege the company wrongfully took from their royalties through international “intracompany charges.”
The letter extensively refers to a Rolling Stone report from March, which detailed a sexual harassment claim former Warner Records A&R Samantha Maloney brought against WMG CEO Stephen Cooper, and the subsequent $240,000 NDA she signed that prevents her from talking about the claims. (Through a WMG representative, Cooper denied the allegation.) In the same complaint, Maloney brought forward claims she’d heard against former A&R executive Jeff Fenster (who was fired after Maloney’s complaint) and current promo executive Dave Dyer. (Dyer and Fenster declined to comment at the time.)
The letter also references allegations from WMG-signed singer-songwriter Lily Allen, who’d previously alleged in her book My Thoughts Exactly that a record executive sexually assaulted her in 2016. As the letter notes, Allen allegedly “discussed her experiences with Max Lousada, the CEO of Recorded Music for WMG. Ms. Allen purportedly asked Lousada whether he would investigate her claims. According to Ms. Allen, Lousada said “No.””
Along with asking for any and all documents related to any potential sexual misconduct allegation, Carvello also asked for all documents pertaining specifically to those two cases.
Carvello also mentioned allegations she leveled in her own book, including claims that Ahmet Ertegun, the Atlantic Records co-founder who died in 2006, sexually assaulted her multiple times and at one point fractured Carvello’s arm. She asked for documents related to her own personal allegations in the 220 letter as well.
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