Just days ahead of the Grammys, the Recording Academy is facing yet another controversy around sexual abuse in its ranks. The Los Angeles Times has reported that the Academy covered up an alleged culture of sexual abuse with NDAs and payments. The allegations came ahead of the Academy honoring Joel Katz, its former general counsel, with the Trustees Award. Katz was reportedly one of the key figures involved in the cover-up. At least five women told the Times they had signed such NDAs since the 1990s after coming to the Academy about misconduct. Katz did not comment to the Times, while the Recording Academy said it “has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual misconduct.†The Academy still honored Katz at the Special Merit Awards, though he did not attend.
Terri McIntyre, the former executive director of the Academy’s Los Angeles chapter, told the Times she had twice been offered money in exchange for her silence about alleged sexual assaults at the Academy. Years after she left her position, in 2001, she said Katz offered her $1 million “to put this to bed.†McIntyre did not sign an NDA, and last December she sued former Academy chairman Mike Greene, saying he had raped her twice. A representative for Greene denied McIntyre’s allegations to the Times.
Greene resigned from the Academy in 2002 after it paid a woman $650,000 to settle a sexual-harassment lawsuit against him. (The Academy later cleared Greene in its own investigation.) A former Academy executive who reported to Greene, Joanne Gardner Lowell, attested to the NDAs. “The rule at the Academy was ‘Don’t speak about anything that happened within these walls,’†she told the Times.
The report also follows a lawsuit accusing former Academy CEO Neil Portnow of rape. The November claim was made by an unnamed female musician who said Portnow had drugged and assaulted her in 2018. A representative for Portnow previously told Vulture the claims were “completely false.†Portnow resigned in 2019 after making a much-criticized statement that women in music needed to “step up†to win Grammys. His replacement, Deborah Dugan, first uncovered the rape claim in 2020 in her own complaint against the Academy. Dugan had also accused Katz, the former counsel, of sexual harassment, which he denied at the time.
Katz received the Trustees Award on February 3 at the Grammys’ Special Merit Awards ceremony, alongside musician and manager Peter Asher and hip-hop founder DJ Kool Herc. His colleague, Jason M. Karlov, accepted on his behalf, per Billboard, and said Katz was “addressing his health concerns.†The Grammys take place the following day, February 4, with a historic slate of nominated women.
This story has been updated throughout.