The lawsuit exclusively accuses Reid of sexual battery, bogus imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress as perfectly as a “crime of violence enthusiastic by gender.”
“This litigation is not only about the horrific actual physical assaults that Ms. Dixon experienced to endure,” the lawsuit suggests, “but it is also about the irreparable harm finished to the uncommon and blossoming vocation of an incredible expertise.”
“L.A. Reid is a regarded predator, who uses his singular experienced electric power to force himself on his victims,” Dixon said in a assertion. “In my situation, his persistent marketing campaign of sexual harassment and assault forced me to abandon the get the job done I beloved when I was at the best of my recreation in the new music organization, owning labored my way up from internships and a work as a receptionist.”
Dixon’s lawyer, Kenya Davis, explained in a assertion that Reid “leveraged his place of authority to sexually harass and assault” Dixon.
Reid could not straight away be reached for comment. His record label, Mega, which he co-established with Usher, as perfectly as Harper Collins, which released his 2017 memoir, did not react to requests for comment.
In the lawsuit, Dixon statements that she was sexually assaulted 2 times by Reid in 2001. The first incident allegedly took place on Reid’s private plane on the way to a corporation retreat in Puerto Rico for Arista Records, which had a joint venture with Reid’s LaFace Information label. A second assault, according to the lawsuit, took place in Reid’s car all through the very same calendar year soon after he claimed the two would go over demo recordings of an unsigned artist.
Right after the incidents, “Reid would directly respond to Ms. Dixon’s rejection of his sexual advancements by punishing the artists Ms. Dixon experienced already signed or by blocking the artists she tried to signal,” according to the lawsuit.
Dixon labored at Arista from 1996 to 2002. She returned to the tunes sector immediately after graduating from Harvard in 2004.
Reid has gained 3 Grammys throughout his vocation, which include for the Boyz II Males track “End of the Road” in 1993. He inevitably became the CEO and president of Arista Records in 2000 and began working with rising artists like Avril Lavigne and OutKast. Reid then moved to Def Jam in 2004 where he aided see the increase of artists this sort of as Rihanna, Bon Jovi and Justin Bieber.
Reid grew to become a choose on “The X-Factor” competitors demonstrate in 2011, the exact 12 months he turned CEO of Epic Documents. All through his time at the label, he oversaw the accomplishment of artists this sort of as Upcoming and Travis Scott. He left Epic Information in 2017 immediately after an assistant accused him of sexual assault, according to Selection.
Dixon’s allegations will slide under the Grownup Survivors Act, a New York law enacted in 2022 that presents adult sexual assault survivors up to 1 calendar year to file a lawsuit irrespective of when the abuse occurred. Dixon pushed and advocated for the legislation to go.
“I joined a coalition of brave survivors to fight for the passage of the Adult Survivors Act mainly because trauma usually takes time, and I consider all victims of sexual violence must have the option to pursue justice in advance of a jury of their friends,” Dixon claimed in a statement Wednesday. “Thanks to the ASA, hundreds of survivors in the state of New York have already held their abusers accountable, and today I located the courage to be part of them.”
The new allegations comply with accusations Dixon produced in opposition to Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, in 2017. Dixon alleged that he raped her in 1995 and that Reid harassed her, which affected her profession in the tunes marketplace. Simmons denied the allegations by Dixon and two other ladies, who also accused him of rape.
“I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have stunned me to my main and all of my relations have been consensual,” he advised the New York Occasions.