John Legend’s manager speaks out about a terrifying incident that took place at a Diddy party.
Ty Stiklorius wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times titled, “The Music Industry Is Toxic After P. Diddy, We Can Clean It Up,” and in it, she talked about what she experienced while at a yacht party thrown by Sean “Diddy” Combs when she was a recent college graduate.
Stiklorius said that she was led to a room where a man who could have been associated with the host locked the door behind him. “Perhaps my nervous babbling- ‘My brother’s on this boat, and he’s probably looking for me!’- convinced him to unlock the bedroom door and let me go,” she wrote.
To Stiklorius, it was unclear if the man was associated with Diddy but she would learn the behavior was common. “But I do now know, after 20 years as a music industry executive, that what happened that night was no aberration- it was an indicator of a pervasive culture in the music industry that actively fostered sexual misconduct and exploited the lives and bodies of those hoping to make it in the business,” she wrote.
In the op-ed, Ty Stiklorius also talked about her experiences with predators and the people who enable them and how it almost made her leave the music industry. However, things would change in 2005 when John Legend reached out to her. “It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be a part of a different model of business and culture.”