Update: Amazon Studios executive Roy Price has been suspended following accusations of sexual harassment against a television producer.
“Roy Price is on leave of absence effective immediately,” a representative for Amazon said in a statement Thursday night.
Original story below:
Just hours after actress Rose McGowan launched a broadside against Amazon CEO (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos with the accusation that the richest man in the world was “funding rapists, alleged pedos, and sexual harassers,” one of Bezos’s top executives, Roy Price, was publicly accused of harassing television producer Isa Hackett.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hackett says the horror show began in a cab after an Amazon staff party back in July of 2015:
Once in the cab, Hackett says Price repeatedly and insistently propositioned her. “You will love my d**k,” he said, according to Hackett, who relayed her account to multiple individuals in the hours after the alleged episode. (The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed Hackett told at least two people about the alleged incident in the immediate aftermath.) Hackett says she made clear to Price she was not interested and told him that she is lesbian with a wife and children.
Hackett says Price did not relent in the cab or once they arrived at the Amazon party. As she talked with other executives, she says that Price stepped close to her and loudly said, “Anal sex!” in her ear.
Most damning for Amazon is the fact that Hatckett reported the incidents to Amazon. The company says it did an investigation but Price still has his high-powered job.
Amazon released a mealy-mouthed statement that read in part, “[W]e looked closely at this specific concern and addressed it directly with those involved.”
In her tweetstorm to Bezos, McGowan says that “I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.”
Roy Price is the head of Bezos’ studio.
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