Pioneering music producer, executive and entrepreneur Antonio “L.A.” Reid is being sued by a former underboss who claimed that he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions in the early 2000s.
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan’s Federal District Court in New York, Drew Dixon claims that the cofounder of the groundbreaking LaFace Records sexually assaulted her twice. When she spurned Reid’s advances and sexual overtures, she says that he retaliated against her relentlessly and ruined her “meteoric” career in music.
“This litigation is not only about the horrific physical assaults that Ms. Dixon had to endure but it is also about the irreparable damage done to the rare and blossoming career of an extraordinary talent,” the lawsuit, obtained by Variety, states.
Speaking to the New York Times about the timing of the lawsuit 20 years after she left the company, Dixon said “I have an opportunity now to seek some degree of accountability. And that’s really what I’m trying to do.”
Fox News states that the lawsuit includes her claim that Def Jam founder Russell Simmons raped her in 1995, which Simmons vehemently denies. She said she is still evaluating her “legal options” with regards to Simmons.
Reid has yet to publicly respond to Dixon’s lawsuit. However, Reid was reportedly forced to step down as chairman of Epic Records in 2017 after he was accused of sexual harassment by a former female employee.
This current lawsuit states that Dixon was in the midst of a rapidly rising career working with iconic acts such as Whitney Houston and Carlos Santana. Once she ascended to the top of the company in 2000, the harassment allegedly began.
After she turned down Reid’s sexual advances, Dixon claims in the lawsuit that Reid “retaliated against her by embarrassing her in front of others or otherwise being curt and unprofessional,” the lawsuit states, according to Fox News. “Promotional and recording budgets were suddenly reduced dramatically or frozen altogether. Song demos and artist auditions were flatly rejected.”
“It was very clear that I was being punished because I would not comply,” she told the Times.
Dixon resigned in 2002 and attended Harvard Business School. Once she tried to return to music, she claims that Reid and his coterie of “enablers” convinced her to forego those dreams.
