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    Philharmonic Dismisses 2 Players Over Sexual Misconduct Accusations

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    The orchestra said an inquiry found credible claims against the musicians of sexual assault and harassment. They denied the charges.The New York Philharmonic said on Monday that it had dismissed two players after an inquiry uncovered what it described as credible claims against them of sexual assault and harassment.The players — the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, and the principal oboist, Liang Wang — had previously been accused of misconduct, and the Philharmonic tried and failed to fire them in 2018.But the musicians were put on paid leave in April when the orchestra fielded new questions about that case. An investigation that began then has now turned up additional claims of misbehavior, the Philharmonic said.The orchestra last month informed the players that they would be dismissed at the start of the next season. They will remain on paid leave until then.“We have done the right thing and we have followed the letter of the law,” said Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s interim leader. “The facts strongly supported our case.”Ms. Borda said the inquiry had uncovered “patterns of sexual misconduct and abuse of power” by the two men. She added that Mr. Wang had engaged in inappropriate relationships with students and had improperly tried to influence decisions about tenure. In total, 11 women came forward with accusations against Mr. Wang, the Philharmonic said, and three against Mr. Muckey. The orchestra said the accusations ranged from inappropriate remarks to assault.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘Good Omens’ Season 3 Cut Short Amid Allegations Against Neil Gaiman

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      The series is the third production linked to the author to face turmoil after allegations made by five women surfaced this summer.“Good Omens,” a series based on a novel by the author Neil Gaiman written in collaboration with Terry Pratchett, will return for a third and final season, but it will consist of only one episode, Prime Video announced on Friday.“Good Omens” is the third production to face turmoil this year amid allegations, including claims of sexual assault, that five women have made against Mr. Gaiman relating to conduct from 1986 to 2022.The final season of the series will be truncated to one 90-minute episode, and Mr. Gaiman, who contributed to the writing of the final series, will not be working on the production, according to Amazon MGM Studios.The production company did not comment on why Mr. Gaiman, 63, will not be involved. Mr. Gaiman, who also did not respond to a request for comment on Friday, has previously denied any wrongdoing.The first two seasons of “Good Omens” included six episodes each. The changes to the final season of the series came after two other productions related to Mr. Gaiman were halted earlier this year.The actor Michael Sheen in “Good Omens.” Chris Raphael/Amazon StudiosThe allegations played a role in pausing the production of “The Graveyard Book,” an adaptation of the young adult novel by Mr. Gaiman, according to a person at Disney, adding that the allegations were not the sole reason that the production was paused. Disney would not provide any additional reasons.“Dead Boy Detectives,” a TV series based on a comic book by Mr. Gaiman, will not return for a second season, according to Netflix, which did not say why.The turmoil in the productions linked to Mr. Gaiman has come after the five women spoke on the podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.”There are no publicly known lawsuits or open police investigations related to the allegations. Lawyers representing Mr. Gaiman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.Mr. Gaiman is the author of dozens of works, including the “The Sandman” and the novella “Coraline,” which became a popular animated film. Mr. Gaiman’s works have earned many accolades, including multiple Hugo Awards, the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal.“Good Omens,” which premiered in 2019, tells the story of the friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel played by Michael Sheen, and Crowley, a demon played by David Tennant. The final episode will star Mr. Sheen and Mr. Tennant, according to Amazon MGM Studios.Production on the final episode of “Good Omens” will begin in early 2025, and it will premiere on Prime Video. More

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      in Music

      What to Know About the Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The music mogul, who faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, has been accused in civil court of raping and drugging people. He has denied the allegations.In November 2023, the R&B singer Cassie filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, her former record label head and boyfriend, accusing him of rape, of forcing her to participate in sexual encounters he called “freak-offs” and of ongoing physical abuse for about a decade. Mr. Combs, who is also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, has “vehemently” denied the allegations.Over the following months, more than 20 additional lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs — including more than half of them after he was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution in September. He has pleaded not guilty and remains detained in a Brooklyn jail; the trial is scheduled for May 5.The Lawsuits Against Sean Combs, Known as DiddyOCTOBER 202411 Lawsuits From Anonymous Plaintiffs in federal court in New YorkA legal team led by Tony Buzbee, a personal injury lawyer in Houston who has used a phone hotline, Instagram and a news conference to solicit clients with claims against Mr. Combs, filed six suits alleging sexual assaults from 1995 to 2021, followed by five additional suits alleging sexual assaults from 2000 to 2022.Tony Buzbee, a Houston lawyer, held a news conference to announce he had a large number of individuals with claims against Mr. Combs — and to solicit more.Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressThe accusations: In two suits from the first batch of filings, women accused Mr. Combs of raping them at parties in New York City; one plaintiff said Mr. Combs raped her in 1995 at a promotional event for a music video by the Notorious B.I.G. Four of the plaintiffs are men, including one who said he was working security at a White Party in the Hamptons in 2006 when Mr. Combs drugged him, pushed him into a van and raped him. Another man accused Mr. Combs of groping his genitals at a 1998 White Party, when the plaintiff was 16. A third man’s suit involves a 2008 encounter in a stockroom at Macy’s, where he said Mr. Combs forced his penis into the plaintiff’s mouth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Faces 6 Lawsuits From Lawyer With a Hotline

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      The Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee filed suits in New York with new allegations of rape and sexual assault from 1995 to 2021. Mr. Combs denied the accusations.The embattled music mogul Sean Combs is facing six more sexual assault lawsuits in New York, including one from a man who accused Mr. Combs of groping his genitals when he was 16, in what a team of lawyers say are the first filings from dozens of plaintiffs.The lawsuits, filed on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, also accuse Mr. Combs of raping two men and two women and forcing another man to perform oral sex in allegations that span from 1995 to 2021. All of the claims were filed anonymously.The filings further intensify the legal troubles facing Mr. Combs, the longtime record executive and performer known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, as he awaits a trial for federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges in a Brooklyn jail. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers said in a statement in response to the new lawsuits that “Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman.”The new lawsuits were brought by a personal injury lawyer in Houston, Tony Buzbee, who has used Instagram and a widely publicized news conference to solicit clients. Mr. Buzbee detailed the scope of his work at the news conference this month, where he spoke in front of a backdrop displaying a large red hotline number that people with claims against Mr. Combs could call.“After the indictment of Sean Combs and the announcement that we were pursuing these claims, the floodgates opened,” Mr. Buzbee said at the news conference.In one of the lawsuits filed on Monday, a plaintiff recounts a 1998 encounter with Mr. Combs at one of the entertainer’s famous White Parties at his mansion in the Hamptons. The suit says the plaintiff, who was 16 at the time, bumped into Mr. Combs and shared his dreams of “becoming a star,” after which Mr. Combs told him that he needed to drop his pants. When the plaintiff complied, the suit says, Mr. Combs grabbed and squeezed his genitals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Political Theater: 7 Shows That Wrestle With Cultural Issues

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      These productions are grappling with climate change, reproductive rights, the Arab Spring and accusations of sexual assault.The stage has always been a political setting, whether explicitly or implicitly. The lights go down, and confrontation and conflict ensues. With the U.S. presidential election around the corner, and the political fractures of society on full display, recent theater productions have grappled with these difficulties head-on. Here are a few of the current and upcoming productions tackling loaded and thorny issues.‘The Ford/Hill Project’Oct. 16-20 at the Public TheaterThat this verbatim play was staged at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington on Oct. 7, the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, should make its political mission clear enough. As for the play itself? The actors onstage were re-enacting the accusations of sexual assault and harassment leveled at two Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Bret Kavanaugh.“The Ford/Hill Project,” which begins performances on Wednesday at the Public Theater in Manhattan, interweaves real excerpts from the Senate hearings in which Anita Hill recounted her sexual harassment allegations against Thomas and, 30 years later, Christine Blasey Ford recounted hers against Kavanaugh. The replication of verbatim quotes allows the audience to attend these seismic political events themselves, draws attention to the very public nature of these proceedings and the theatricality of politics, and highlights the connection between our past and present.In a recent video call, Lee Sunday Evans, the play’s director and co-creator, discussed how the performance breaks from being pure re-enactment. Hill and Ford “were extraordinarily alone when they gave their testimony,” she explained, but in the piece, “they’re able to stand side by side.” She added that she hopes the play helps people see their stories as more related and “creates a space where they don’t have to be alone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Garth Brooks Names Woman Who Accused Him of Rape

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      In a court filing, lawyers for the country superstar portrayed him as “the victim of a shakedown” and asked for compensatory and punitive damages.Garth Brooks, the country superstar, has named the woman who, as Jane Roe, accused him of rape and sexual assault in a bombshell lawsuit last week.In a court filing in Mississippi on Tuesday, lawyers for Mr. Brooks portrayed the star as “the victim of a shakedown” and said the woman’s lawyers had “flouted” the authority of a judge in a related case.Litigation over the woman’s accusations began last month with a lawsuit that was filed anonymously — as John Doe v. Jane Roe — in federal court in Mississippi. The plaintiff, identified only as “a celebrity and public figure who resides in Tennessee,” said that lawyers for a woman had approached him in July with what he described as false allegations of sexual assault, and that they would sue Mr. Brooks unless he gave the woman “a multimillion-dollar payment.” The man asked the Mississippi judge to preserve the parties’ anonymity and declare that the woman’s accusations were false.In a response, lawyers for the woman said they intended to sue the man in California, saying that “Ms. Roe respectfully requests that she may commence her California action as she intended to do, and use Mr. Doe’s name, absent objection from this Honorable Court.”The court did not act, and two days later the woman filed her lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, naming Mr. Brooks but not herself. The suit accused Mr. Brooks of raping her in a Los Angeles hotel room in 2019, and of subjecting her to repeated unwanted sexual advances for about two years. The woman described herself as a hair and makeup stylist who had worked with Mr. Brooks’s wife, the country singer Trisha Yearwood, since 1999, and had begun working regularly for Mr. Brooks in 2017.The suit drew wide coverage in the news media, and its portrayal of Mr. Brooks ran counter to the positive public image he had cultivated for decades.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Garth Brooks Is Accused of Rape and Assault in Lawsuit

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      A woman who worked as a hair and makeup stylist for the country superstar says he subjected her to repeated advances. Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to the allegations.Garth Brooks, one of country music’s biggest stars, has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who said he raped her in a Los Angeles hotel room and subjected her to repeated unwanted sexual advances over a period of about two years, according to a lawsuit filed in a California court on Thursday.The woman was not named in court papers but was described as a hair and makeup stylist who worked with Mr. Brooks from 2017 to about 2020. In that time, her suit says, he repeatedly harassed her, describing graphic sexual fantasies and in one instance placing her hands on his genitals when he came out of a shower.A spokeswoman for Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Brooks, 62, is a star of the highest order in the world of country music and beyond, a household name who has sold tens of millions of albums and, decades into his career, still plays to stadiums full of adoring fans. He has also long been devoted to charitable organizations, particularly those focused on children and local relief after natural disasters.But the suit accuses him of preying on a woman working for him and then trying to silence her.Litigation over the woman’s accusation began three weeks ago with an anonymous suit filed in federal court in Mississippi. In that case — called John Doe v. Jane Roe — a man identified only as “a celebrity and public figure who resides in Tennessee” said that a woman residing in Mississippi had made “false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct she claims occurred years ago.” He asked a judge to protect his identity and to declare that the woman’s accusations against him were false.In a filing this week in response, the woman’s lawyers portrayed that lawsuit as a pre-emptive move to silence her, and said that she would be filing her case imminently, which would name the man.The 27-page lawsuit filed by the woman on Thursday, in Los Angeles Superior Court, says she is the same person listed as the defendant in the Mississippi action, and identifies Mr. Brooks as the John Doe plaintiff.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Sean Combs’s White Parties Were Edgy, A-List Affairs. Were They More?

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      The events helped the music mogul raise his profile. But one woman who worked at them has said in court papers that the parties had a dark side, too.In the 2000s, few events held the cultural cachet of the White Party thrown by Sean Combs — fetes in Beverly Hills, the Hamptons and other playgrounds of the rich, studded with famous names and fabulous tableaus.At the 2009 party, Demi Moore made the scene with Lil’ Kim, dancers gyrated in giant plastic balloons alongside tottering stilt walkers, and Ashton Kutcher swung, Tarzan-like, across a swimming pool as models in white bikinis lounged beside it.And at the center of it all was Mr. Combs, the billionaire hip-hop mogul also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, invariably toasting the scene with a glass of Cîroc vodka, and welcoming comparisons of his revels to those of lore.“Have I read ‘The Great Gatsby?’” Mr. Combs once told The Independent. “I am the Great Gatsby!”Today, Mr. Combs’s fortunes again invite comparison to Gatsby, though now through scandal. Prosecutors say Mr. Combs enlisted employees, enablers and prostitutes to stage far darker soirees than White Parties called “freak-offs” — drug-heavy, sometimes days-long hotel parties during which investigators say he abused and coerced participants into sexual acts, which he sometimes filmed and masturbated to.The criminal indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court this month has invited something of a reappraisal of the White Parties for some of those who reveled or worked at them. Were they merely innocuous, press-conscious branding events at which to see and be seen? Or was there, beyond the all-white facade, a darker element?Indeed, a recent lawsuit claims misdeeds occurred at those events, too: In July, Adria English, who was hired by Mr. Combs to work a series of White Parties in the mid-to-late 2000s, sued him, asserting she was plied with drugs and ecstasy-laced liquor at the events, and commanded to have sex with certain guests, making her into “a sexual pawn.” Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, denied in July that his client had ever “sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sean Combs’s Arrest Has the Music World Asking: Is Our #MeToo Here?

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      Activists and survivors are hopeful for change after the industry, which has a pervasive party culture, largely avoided the accountability that swept Hollywood and politics.The arrest of Sean Combs last week, on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the hip-hop impresario, who as recently as a year ago was feted as an industry visionary before a sudden series of sexual assault accusations.The indictment against Mr. Combs accuses him of running a criminal enterprise centered on abusing women, and of using bribery, arson, kidnapping and threats of violence to intimidate and silence victims. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges.But Mr. Combs’s arrest has also stirred the hopes of activists and survivors of sexual violence that his case may finally lead to lasting change in the music industry. Though long seen as inhospitable to women, the business has largely avoided the scrutiny and accountability that swept Hollywood, politics and much of the media world at the peak of the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s.There is no single explanation for why music dodged a similar reckoning. Some point to the industry’s decentralized power structure, its pervasive party culture and a history of deference to artists and top executives.“Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the looseness with sexuality — that is baked into the culture of the music industry,” said Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College and a longtime activist. “Unfortunately, that means that rape culture is baked into it, because there aren’t mechanisms of accountability.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More