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

• John Legend's longtime manager and old college friend, Ty Stiklorius, has spoken out about the "toxic" music industry after 20 years in the business in a candid New York Times article
• The Friends at Work founder recalled attending a Sean "Diddy" Combs yacht party in St. Barts 27 years ago when she was a recent college graduate
• "To this day, I can’t remember how I managed to talk my way out of that terrifying situation," she said, revealing she was "directed into a bedroom by a man" at the event

John Legend's longtime manager is opening up about her own experiences in the "toxic" music industry.

In a New York Times piece titled "The Music Industry Is Toxic. After P. Diddy, We Can Clean It Up," published on Thursday, Oct. 31, Ty Stiklorius — founder of the management company, Friends at Work, which works with many artists including Legend, 45 — said she's hopeful for new beginnings in the industry following the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Recalling her own experience attending one of Combs' New Year's Eve yacht parties in St. Barts, 27 years ago with her brother, Stiklorius — who was a recent college graduate at the time — said she was "directed into a bedroom by a man." She added that she's still "not sure of who he was or if he had any connection to Mr. Combs."

"To this day, I can’t remember how I managed to talk my way out of that terrifying situation. 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," Stiklorius, 49, wrote, adding that she assumed at the time that her "experience was an anomaly" and that it was "just one guy behaving badly at a drunken party."

Now, she said, she knows her experience wasn't unusual in the music industry.

"After 20 years as a music industry executive... [I now know] 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.

Stiklorius added that her "early experiences with predators, and those that enabled them, nearly led me to give up on the music business," but her friend Legend helped change that.

"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," she continued.

She went on to add, "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 friend was Legend, who she noted she has now managed for 20 years.

"It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be a part of a different model of business and culture," she wrote.

In addition to Legend, Stiklorius' company Friends at Work represents artists including Charlie Puth and The National. She and Legend have also launched businesses JL Ventures and the production company Get Lifted Film Co. together through the years.

Stiklorius questioned in the NY Times piece, "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?"

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She's hopeful the industry can now "turn the page on a culture of exploitation and abuse."

Insisting the "days of gatekeepers" in the business "are numbered," Stiklorius concluded, "We owe it to the countless survivors of sexual assault and misconduct who suffered silently to unearth the truth, encourage people to share their stories and hold perpetrators accountable. We owe it to the next generation of creators to remake the business into something worthy of the art they create."