with us. Men are not
the enemy. I felt that
if you had a female
journalist interview
me, it would send
the message that,
“Oh, the women are
ganging up on the
men.” That’s not what
I’m trying to say. As
I wrote in the book,
there were a few men
who did stand up and
help me, and I would
take a bullet for any
one of them.
The misconduct
scandals of the last
year have made
some men sensitive
to how they interact
with female
colleagues.
I’m hearing from
men that they don’t
want to close their
doors when they
meet with a woman.
They’re afraid of
women — and that’s
wrong. Thirty-one
years after I started
in this business,
white males are still
running things. We
need to get women
into power positions,
and we can’t do that
without the men.
You endured a lot of
abusive behavior
on the job. At one
point, you write that
Ertegun fractured
your forearm in a fit
of anger. And yet
you admit that
you bought into
the culture.
I was a product of
Catholic school,
which teaches you
that anything that’s
fun is not allowed.
Ahmet Ertegun
was a permission
slip to be bad.
Watching men
behave freely is very
attractive when
you’re a repressed
young woman.
I thought that
by running with
them and enabling
them to behave
in a disrespectful
fashion, I was one of
them — but I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to admit
I was being paid less.
I didn’t want to admit
I was being passed
over for promotions
because that would
have deflated my
dream of being an
executive in the
music business.What was the pay
disparity then?
I tapped out at
60 grand, which
was like the weekly
[travel and expenses
report] for the male
executives, who were
making well over
six figures. After all,
they had families to
support. I heard that
many times. I was
also told by one of the
men at Atlantic, “No
babies [for you] on
my watch.”There have been
media reports of
executives trying
to get their hands
on your manuscript.
Any good
stories there?
There are two men
— kings of the music
industry who I’m
not going to name
because I want the
book to stand on its
own — who have
been trying to get a
hold of my book. The
funny thing is, when
I sent them emails
asking them to talk
to me about why they
did what they did to
me — which I did withmany of the people
I wrote about in the
book — they refused.How has the
treatment of women
changed in the last
30 years?
Things have
improved in terms
of men’s behavior
toward women,
but there still aren’t
enough men helping
enough women get
to the jobs where
they’re in the room
making decisions.If you were running
a label, what
would you do to
achieve change?
The industry has
to close down for
a day, if not longer,
and everyone from
the receptionists to
the CEOs should
undergo unconscious
gender-bias training.So the music
industry
should have a
Starbucks moment?
Except we’re going
to need more than
an afternoon.
—FRANK DIGIACOMOworst. Once I walked in on two promotion
executives watching a Japanese porn
movie while one of Atlantic’s biggest
stars sat with them eating Chinese food.
Let’s just say I felt it in the air. Another
promotion executive decorated his oice
with dildos, S&M harnesses and ball gags,
masks, lube, and a cat o’ nine tails whip.
It looked like the Pink Pussycat Boutique,
a sex shop in New York’s Greenwich
Village. (One Atlantic vice president had
a house account there, and after sales
meetings executives would order sex
toys, pornography, and lube, which the
Boutique delivered.)
By the time I arrived at Atlantic, Ahmet
didn’t want to be bogged down with
the dull details of running the company
anymore. He’d been the greatest talent
inder in the business, but he had burned
out. Now he just wanted to play. He
needed an entire entourage to help him
function—enablers, drug dealers, hookers,
groupies, hangers-on, bodyguards, and
yes, his secretary. I became his unoicial
cleaner. By the end of the night, his
clothes were usually encrusted with
cocaine or vomit or both, and he needed a
good wiping down.
For a normal twenty-ive-year-old girl,
cleaning puke of an old, drug-addled
lecher might have been a deal breaker.
I guess I wasn’t normal, because I loved
it. Ahmet was free. His life was the exact
opposite of mine, and I got paid to live
some of the wildest parts with him. It
knocked me out. How could it not? My
mother could barely aford to buy me
Christmas presents, and here was a
man whose chaufeur drove him in his
Mercedes to the company jet. Here was123