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      Philharmonic Opens Inquiry After Misconduct Allegations Are Revived

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      The New York Philharmonic commissioned an outside investigation into its culture after a magazine article explored how it handled an accusation of sexual assault in 2010.The New York Philharmonic, which has been facing an uproar since a recent magazine article detailed allegations of misconduct against two players it tried and failed to fire in 2018, said on Thursday that it was commissioning an outside investigation into its culture.Gary Ginstling, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to musicians, staff members and board members that the organization had hired an outside lawyer, Katya Jestin, a managing partner of the law firm Jenner & Block, to “launch an independent investigation into the culture of the New York Philharmonic in recent years.”“I am empowering Katya to look at everything and to leave no stone unturned, including any new allegations as they are reported,” Mr. Ginstling wrote. The decision came after a report last week in New York magazine detailed accusations of misconduct made in 2010 against the players, the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, and the principal oboist, Liang Wang.In the article Cara Kizer, a former Philharmonic horn player, came forward for the first time to publicly discuss an encounter that she said occurred while she was on tour with the Philharmonic in Vail, Colo., in 2010. She told the Vail Police Department at the time that she had been sexually assaulted after spending the evening with the two players and was given a drink she came to believe was drugged, according to police records.No charges were filed against the men and both have denied wrongdoing.In 2018 the Philharmonic, under new leadership, commissioned an investigation and moved to dismiss Mr. Muckey and Mr. Wang. But the players’ union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, challenged their dismissals, and an independent arbitrator forced the orchestra to reinstate them in 2020.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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      Philharmonic Sidelines 2 Players It Tried to Fire for Misconduct

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      The New York Philharmonic said the musicians would not perform for now, after a magazine article brought new attention to allegations of misconduct. They have denied wrongdoing.The New York Philharmonic said on Monday that two players it had tried to fire in 2018 — but was forced to rehire after the musicians’ union challenged their dismissal — would not take part in rehearsals or performances for the time being after a magazine article detailed the allegations of misconduct that had been made against them.The Philharmonic said that the players — the principal oboist, Liang Wang, and the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey — would not appear as the orchestra deals with the fallout from a New York magazine article published on Friday.In the article Cara Kizer, a former Philharmonic horn player, came forward for the first time to publicly discuss an encounter that occurred when she was on tour with the Philharmonic in Vail, Colo., in 2010. She told the Vail Police Department then that she had been sexually assaulted after spending the evening with the two players and was given a drink she came to believe was drugged, according to police records.No charges were filed against the men and both have denied wrongdoing; their lawyers said they expect to return to the ensemble soon.In 2018 the Philharmonic moved to dismiss Mr. Wang and Mr. Muckey, who both joined the orchestra in 2006. It said at the time that it had received reports that the two players had “engaged in misconduct,” which it declined to describe, and that it had decided to fire them after commissioning an investigation. But the players’ union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, challenged their dismissals.The orchestra was forced to reinstate them in 2020 after an independent arbitrator found that they had been terminated without just cause.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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      Ed Piskor, Comics Artist, Dies After Sexual Misconduct Accusations

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      Ed Piskor, 41, was known for his detailed “Hip Hop Family Tree” and “X-Men: Grand Design.” A Pittsburgh gallery canceled an exhibition of his work after the initial allegation.The comics artist Ed Piskor, who was best known for his multivolume “Hip Hop Family Tree,” died last week after posting a lengthy note to social media about an accusation of sexual misconduct that led a gallery in Pittsburgh to indefinitely postpone an exhibition of his work.The death of Piskor, who lived in Munhall, Pa., was confirmed by a funeral home, but no cause was given. Many people read his note on social media — in which he repeatedly spoke of his death — as a suicide note.Two of Piskor’s relatives declined to comment. The chief of the Munhall Police Department said Piskor died outside of Pennsylvania.The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a nonprofit arts group, announced last month that it would not open the five-month exhibition as planned after a woman accused Piskor of trying to “groom” her in 2020, when she was in high school, and posted screenshots from their online conversations.Piskor, 41, apologized for the messages in his note and said he never should have communicated with the teenager. He also addressed separate allegations from another artist, saying that they had a consensual sexual relationship.His agent, Bob Mecoy, said the artist had defined himself by his work and was devastated by what the future had held.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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      #MeToo Stalled in France. Judith Godrèche Might Be Changing That.

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      Judith Godrèche did not set out to relaunch the #MeToo movement in France’s movie industry.She came back to Paris from Los Angeles in 2022 to work on “Icon of French Cinema,” a TV series she wrote, directed and starred in — a satirical poke at her acting career that also recounts how, at the age of 14, she entered into an abusive relationship with a film director 25 years older.Then, a week after the show aired, in late December, a viewer’s message alerted her to a 2011 documentary that she says made her throw up and start shaking as if she were “naked in the snow.”There was the same film director, admitting that their relationship had been a “transgression” but arguing that “making films is a kind of cover” for forms of “illicit traffic.”She went to the police unit specialized in crimes against children — its waiting room was filled with toys and a giant teddy bear, she recalls — to file a report for rape of a minor.“There I was,” said Ms. Godrèche, now 52, “at the right place, where I’ve been waiting to be since I was 14.”Since then, Ms. Godrèche has been on a campaign to expose the abuse of children and women that she believes is stitched into the fabric of French cinema. Barely a week has gone by without her appearance on television and radio, in magazines and newspapers, and even before the French Parliament, where she demanded an inquiry into sexual violence in the industry and protective measures for children.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

      ‘Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV’: 5 Takeaways

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      The Investigation Discovery documentary takes a look at accounts of a problematic working environment at Nickelodeon.The Investigation Discovery documentary “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” is a four-part series about working at Nickelodeon, including the environment under the former producer Dan Schneider, and what some described as harmful situations that child actors and adult employees were put in. It premiered on Sunday and is streaming on Max.Schneider, who parted ways with Nickelodeon in 2018, doesn’t appear in the docuseries, but former writers, child stars, staffers and journalists paint a picture of the environment at the network starting in the 1990s, through his departure.Schneider responded to the series in a video on Tuesday. “Watching over the past two nights was very difficult, me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret, and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology,” Schneider said in a nearly 20-minute video posted to his YouTube channel.In response to producers’ questions, the documentary said, Nickelodeon stated that the network “investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace” and has “adopted numerous safeguards over the years to help ensure we are living up to our own high standards and the expectations of our audience.”Here are the biggest takeaways from the series.Drake Bell publicly speaks about his abuse for the first time.Drake Bell, in 2018. He has spoken publicly about his sexual abuse for the first time, in “Quiet on Set.”Slaven Vlasic/Getty ImagesBrian Peck, a dialogue coach for Nickelodeon, was convicted of sexually abusing the “Drake & Josh” star Jared Drake Bell. Peck was arrested in 2003 in connection with the sexual abuse of a teenager over a four-month period. In 2004, Peck pleaded no contest to two felonies, according to public records. At the time of the abuse, Bell was 15 and Peck was 41; in court documents, Bell was identified as John Doe.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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      Depardieu Sexual Assault Suit Dropped Over Statute of Limitations

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      Hélène Darras, a French actress, had accused Gérard Depardieu of groping her in 2007 on a movie set. A separate investigation of the actor is proceeding, Paris prosecutors said.A sexual assault lawsuit filed against Gérard Depardieu by a French actress has been dropped because it was past the statute of limitations, prosecutors in Paris said on Monday, but the French actor is still under investigation in a separate case.In the lawsuit that was dropped, the actress Hélène Darras had accused Depardieu of groping her on the set of “Disco,” a comedy released in 2008. Her suit had been filed in September but was made public only last month, shortly before she appeared in a France 2 television documentary alongside three other women who also accused Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct.The documentary, which showed Depardieu making crude sexual and sexist comments during a 2018 trip to North Korea, set off a fierce debate in France that prompted President Emmanuel Macron and dozens of actors, directors and other celebrities to defend Depardieu, splitting the French movie industry.Depardieu, 75, has denied any wrongdoing, and he has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations against him.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?  More

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      France’s President Condemns ‘Manhunt’ Against Gérard Depardieu

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      Emmanuel Macron broke with his culture minister, who had called comments made by Depardieu in a documentary a “disgrace.” The actor is facing renewed scrutiny over sexual assault accusations.President Emmanuel Macron of France this week condemned what he called a “manhunt” targeting Gérard Depardieu, the embattled French actor whose worldwide fame has been tarnished in recent years by allegations of sexual harassment and assault.Macron’s comments, which prompted swift criticism, came after a documentary that aired in France this month showed the actor making crude sexual and sexist comments during a 2018 trip to North Korea.Depardieu, 74, has faced renewed scrutiny in the wake of the documentary, including new accusations of sexual assault, the stripping of several international honors and the removal of a likeness of him from the Musée Grévin, a Paris wax museum. He has denied any wrongdoing.Rima Abdul Malak, France’s culture minister, said she was “disgusted” by Depardieu’s comments in the documentary and that disciplinary proceedings would determine whether he should also lose his Legion of Honor, France’s highest award.But in a television interview on Wednesday evening, Macron mounted a staunch defense of Depardieu, who was once one of France’s most prominent and prolific leading men. Macron said that Depardieu “makes France proud” and castigated an “era of suspicion” against prominent artistic or cultural figures.“One thing you’ll never see me in is a manhunt,” Macron told France 5 television, calling himself an “admirer” of Depardieu.As France’s president, Macron is the grand master of the order of the Legion of Honor, an award created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 for “outstanding merit” in a field and given to Depardieu in 1996. Macron said his culture minister had overstepped “a bit too much.”“Am I going to start stripping the Legion of Honor from artists or officials when they say things that shock me?” Macron said. “The answer is no.”“You can accuse someone — maybe there are victims, and I respect them, and I want them to be able to defend their rights,” he added. “But there is also a presumption of innocence,” he said.Macron’s comments reflected the mixed reaction to the #MeToo movement in France, where the reckoning with sexism was hailed by feminist groups, but also fueled worries over the influence of puritanical sexual mores and cancel culture imported from America.France’s movie industry has grappled with several high-profile accusations of sexual abuse in recent years and taken steps to address them. But the country has also given a warm reception to artists accused of abuse — including Johnny Depp and Louis C.K. — exposing a cultural divide with the United States.Feminists and leftist politicians said on Thursday that they were appalled by Macron’s comments.“Manhunts remain prohibited. The hunt for women, on the other hand, remains open,” Osez Le Féminisme, a feminist group, said on social media, while Sandrine Rousseau, a Green lawmaker, called Macron’s comments “yet another insult to the movement to let victims of sexual violence speak out.”François Hollande, Macron’s predecessor as president, criticized him for extolling Depardieu’s acting instead of expressing support for victims of sexual crimes.“No, we are not proud of Gérard Depardieu,” Hollande told France Inter radio, noting that Macron once called gender equality and the fight against sexism a top priority. “And that’s how he treats the issue of Gérard Depardieu?” Hollande said.Depardieu is still an internationally recognized figure who, in the last 50 years, has had roles in more than 250 movies, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”But he has faced a growing number of sexual abuse accusations in recent years.In interviews in April with Mediapart, an investigative news site, 13 women — actresses, makeup artists and production staff — accused Depardieu of making inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during film shoots. Two other women made similar accusations in interviews this summer with France Inter.Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault in one case, which involves Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who says he sexually assaulted her in Paris in 2018, when she was 22, during informal rehearsals for a theater production.Depardieu has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations, and he has categorically denied any wrongdoing.“I have never, ever abused a woman,” he wrote in a rare letter to the newspaper Le Figaro in October.“All my life, I’ve been provocative, outgoing, sometimes crude,” Depardieu wrote, adding an apology for “acting like a child who wants to amuse the gallery.” But, he added, “I’m neither a rapist nor a predator.”The documentary that set off a new wave of scrutiny aired this month on France 2 and features previously unseen footage of Depardieu on a 2018 trip to North Korea, where he is seen repeatedly making extremely crude and uninhibited sexual and sexist comments about women.The documentary suggests that sexual jokes, comments and attitudes by Depardieu on movie sets were commonplace and widely-known, but that the French movie industry brushed them off.Four women accuse Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct in the documentary, including Arnould and Hélène Darras, an actress who says he sexually assaulted her on a 2008 film set and who filed a suit against him in September. Depardieu has not been charged in that case.After the documentary aired, Quebec announced that the actor was being stripped of the Canadian province’s highest honor and a Belgian town where he once lived said it was revoking an honorary title.This week, extra woes for Depardieu piled up quickly. The Musée Grévin said that his wax statue, which first entered the museum in 1981, had been removed. A spokeswoman said that this was “following reactions from visitors who were very shocked by the actor’s comments” and who had then verbally abused employees.On Wednesday, Ruth Baza, a Spanish journalist, told the newspaper La Vanguardia that Depardieu had kissed and groped her without her consent when she was in Paris in 1995 to interview him for a magazine piece.Like many public officials in France — Macron first and foremost — Abdul Malak, the culture minister, said that she was “against cancel culture.”“We are not going to stop watching his movies,” she told France 5 television of Depardieu last week. But she said his comments in the documentary could constitute sexual harassment and were “intolerable,” reflecting badly on France.“He is such a monument of world cinema,” Abdul Malak said, adding that she had received messages from ministers and other cultural figures from around the world “who are shocked, who say, ‘To us, he was such a symbol of France.’” More

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      Former Grammys Head Michael Greene Accused of Sexual Assault in Lawsuit

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      In a complaint, Terri McIntyre, who worked at the Recording Academy in the mid-1990s, says the organization’s then leader, Michael Greene, subjected her to ongoing misconduct.A woman who worked at the Grammys organization in the 1990s has accused its former chief executive, Michael Greene, of drugging and sexually abusing her nearly 30 years ago and of making sex a condition of her employment, according to a lawsuit filed in California on Wednesday.Terri McIntyre, a former executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy, the nonprofit group behind the Grammy Awards, sued Mr. Greene in Los Angeles Superior Court, in the latest of a wave of lawsuits accusing powerful men in the music industry of past misconduct.In her suit, which also names the Recording Academy as a defendant, Ms. McIntyre says that from 1994 to 1996, Mr. Greene caught her in a “trap” in which he regularly pressured her into sexual contact, and forced sex on her against her will.Mr. Greene could not be immediately reached for comment but has previously denied allegations that he sexually harassed employees while an executive with the Grammys.In a statement, the Recording Academy said: “In light of pending litigation, the academy declines to comment on these allegations, which occurred nearly 30 years ago. Today’s Recording Academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual misconduct and we will remain steadfast in that commitment.”In her lawsuit, Ms McIntyre says that while attending a Grammy board meeting in Hawaii in May 1994, soon after she got the job, Mr. Greene gave her Champagne in his hotel room. She “quickly began to feel unwell and began to lose control of her physical movements,” she says in the court papers. She later woke up nude in Mr. Greene’s bed and realized she had been “violated,” according to the suit.On another occasion, she says in the complaint, she was driving with Mr. Greene to a business meeting when he unexpectedly took her to his home near Malibu, Calif., and forced her to perform oral sex in his kitchen.Throughout her time at the Recording Academy, Ms. McIntyre says, Mr. Greene made it clear that enduring his harassment was part of a “quid pro quo proposition” in which she could succeed at the organization, and in the music industry, only if she had a sexual relationship with him. In her complaint, the woman said she was a single mother and needed the job to care for her young daughter.The suit was filed a month after another case in New York against Neil Portnow, Mr. Greene’s successor as the Grammys’ chief. In that suit, an unnamed woman accused Mr. Portnow of drugging and raping her in a New York hotel room in 2018. Mr. Portnow denied the accusations.Ms. McIntyre’s suit offers a new perspective on a tumultuous period in Grammys history. In 2002, Mr. Greene was forced out of the academy after 14 years at its helm, during which he was widely credited with expanding the organization and transforming its annual ceremony into a lucrative, must-see television event. At the same time, Mr. Greene was dogged by a series of scandals, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination, and allegations that MusiCares, a Grammy charity founded under his watch, had spent less than 10 percent of its donations on its stated purpose of helping suffering and indigent musicians.The tipping point for Mr. Greene’s ouster was an accusation by the academy’s human resources officer that he had sexually abused her in a parking lot; he denied the accusation, and the academy said that an investigation had cleared Mr. Greene of wrongdoing. According to news accounts at the time, that woman was paid $650,000 to settle her allegation, a reported payment that Ms. McIntyre cited in her suit.According to reports in The Los Angeles Times in 2001 and 2002, the academy’s human resources department was created because of an earlier accusation against Mr. Greene. A spokesman for the Recording Academy did not answer a question about when the human resources department was created.In 1996, Ms. McIntyre says in her complaint, she left the academy and the music business overall because Mr. Greene had blackballed her in the industry. Ms. McIntyre’s lawyers gave The New York Times a copy of her resignation letter, which reads: “I am compelled to leave due to what I perceive to be serious problems in my work environment.”In her suit, Ms. McIntyre also says that years later, she became an anonymous source for Chuck Philips, then a reporter at The Los Angeles Times, whose articles investigating Mr. Greene’s conduct precipitated the executive’s ouster. In 1999, Mr. Philips and another Los Angeles Times journalist, Michael A. Hiltzik, shared a Pulitzer Prize in beat reporting for a series of articles about the music industry. The articles included discussions of Mr. Greene’s power and compensation at the Grammys; the problems at MusiCares; and complaints from Grammy insiders about the organization’s accounting practices.Mr. Philips could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.After leaving the Grammys, Mr. Greene — who began his career as a saxophonist — founded a company called Artist Tribe, which he has described as a “creative production, technology, education, database and philanthropic enterprise” that serves “creative and cultural communities.”A call on Wednesday to a number associated with Mr. Greene was answered by a man who said that Mr. Greene was on a plane and was not available to comment on the lawsuit.In her suit, Ms. McIntyre says that after her resignation, Mr. Greene and the Recording Academy offered to pay her severance money in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, but she refused.Ms. McIntyre’s suit is the latest in a series that have accused powerful men in the music industry of sexual harassment and abuse. In addition to Mr. Portnow, those men have included the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and the producer L.A. Reid; Mr. Combs and Mr. Rose denied the allegations, while Mr. Tyler denied one accusation and did not respond to a second, and Mr. Reid did not respond.Many of the suits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that gave a one-year window for people who say they were the victims of sexual abuse to bring a civil suit even if the original statute of limitations for their case had expired. That window expired last month. But a similar law in California, under which Ms. McIntyre brought her case, allows cases to be brought until the end of the year.Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More