John Legend’s Longtime Manager Talks ‘Toxic’ Music Industry, Recalls Being in a ‘Terrifying Situation’ at Diddy Party

The piece, by Emmy Award-winning producer Stiklorius, founder of Friends at Work, a management company that works with, among others, Legend, 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 that she attended 27 years ago, hosted by Combs, where she says she was able to persuade an associate of the rapper to unlock a bedroom door and escape. (The Hollywood Reporter has contacted Diddy’s reps for comment.) At the time, she says did not realize exactly what she had clawed her way out of. “It was an indicator,” Stiklorius said. “Power has been concentrated in the hands of kingmakers: wealthy, entitled, nearly always male gatekeepers who control nearly every door that leads to success and who can, without consequence, 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 office” in the music business. And it isn’t a bug of the industry, she says. “It’s a major 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 notorious individuals — whether Harvey Weinstein or R. Kelly — suggests they’re outliers and obscures the more damning, stubborn, systemic rot that had infected the music business.”

She argues that there is hope and these gatekeepers have less power than they used to: “They might still dangle the keys to success in front of young artists, but the locks are changing.”

Stiklorius references the Gen Z star Chappell Roan, who was forced to battle with her label to release smash hit “Pink Pony Club.” The label dropped her when marketing plans did not lead to 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 backing. “In the process, she demonstrated a new truth: The days of the gatekeepers are numbered,” Stiklorius writes.

She continues: “My early experiences with predators, and those that enabled them, nearly led me to give up on the music business. A few years after the boat incident, while pursuing my M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, I attended a dinner where a senior music executive slipped his key card to me under the table, an unsubtle invitation to his hotel room. I declined. … I only persisted in the industry because, in 2005, an old college friend who was starting to find success as an artist reached out to me. That artist was John Legend and, 20 years later, I am still his manager and partner in multiple business ventures. It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be a part of a different model of business and culture.”

There is a path 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 be artists — let alone recording engineers, producers or executives? How many women were coerced, abused, assaulted and silenced on their way to their dreams — trapped by men who controlled access and who made us believe that the key to the kingdom was a key card to their hotel room?”