[Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault.]
According to a report from TMZ, two women have accused Noel “Detail” Fisher, an in-demand music producer who worked with Beyoncé on “Drunk In Love,” among other hits—of sexual assault and abuse. The TMZ story comes from legal documents filed by the two accusers, both of whom were up-and-coming artists who allege that Fisher forced them “to have sex with him in front of others” and of “essentially making [them] his sex slaves.” The two say that they saw Fisher as a “mentor,” but that he sexually coerced them by telling them that this was only way to make it in the music industry.
The two also allege that Fisher became physically violent in recent months; in addition to sexually assaulting them, one says that he “grabbed her by the hair, hit, and choked her,” leaving her with “bruises on her arms, head, back, and legs” just last week. The other says that he once “got violent and slammed her head into a wall and dragged her up a flight of stairs.” Both of the women have been granted restraining orders against Fisher. After TMZ’s story broke, singer Jessie Reyez also revealed on Twitter that her single “Gatekeeper” is about Fisher.
Reyez had already confirmed that “Gatekeeper” was about a music producer she had worked with, saying in an Instagram post that she almost quit music because an unnamed producer had tried to convince her that she’d only succeed if she was willing to “pay with [her] body.” She ended the post with this:
I’ve decided not to use your name because I don’t want to give you any sort of light. With you faceless, I hope to unify anyone else that has had to deal with your type of evil. If you ever have a daughter, I hope your karma does not get charged to her. Fuck you.
Now, in a Twitter post (via Billboard), Reyez has confirmed that the song is about Fisher, saying she was “lucky” to get away from him before “it got to this”—referring to the rape accusations. She also says that the girls who did go to the police “are brave as hell.”