Reminding us that Hollywood’s current Harvey Weinstein troubles are less a story of one bad apple, than a tale of an entire orchard riddled with incidents of systemic rot, a TV producer for Amazon has come forward with an accusation that one of the company’s high-level TV executives sexually harassed her during a company event. Isa Dick Hackett, who produces The Man In The High Castle and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams—both based on the work of her father, the famed sci-fi author—for the service, told The Hollywood Reporter today that Amazon executive Roy Price “repeatedly and insistently propositioned her” during a company party in 2015.
Hackett says she met Price, the streaming service’s programming chief, while doing promotional work for The Man In The High Castle. He invited her to an Amazon staff party, and, during a taxi ride to the event, allegedly began speaking to her in a sexual way, telling her things like “You will love my dick.” Despite Hackett repeatedly turning him down—noting that she’s both married, and gay—Price continued his “attempts” at the party, including walking up to her in the middle of a conversation with other people and loudly stating “Anal sex!” in her ear.
Hackett—who notes that she was inspired to bring light back to this story by the many women speaking out against Weinstein over the last two weeks—says she immediately took the incident to Amazon. The company brought in a third-party investigator, and, while Hackett says she was never told about the outcome of the investigation, notes that she’s never seen Price at events for either of her two shows.
For its part, Amazon had previously responded to inquiries about the event (which Hackett initially made public a few weeks after it happened) by noting that the matter had been handled internally. In the wake of the Weinstein material, though, the company appears to have switched course; Deadline reports that the company has now gone “radio silent,” and a suspension for Price is apparently up in the air. Meanwhile, Price has also been dropped by his lawyer, Lisa Bloom, who’s really not having a very good October when it comes to her clients turning out to be (alleged) creeps.
Update: Variety reports that Price has now been placed on a “leave of absence effective immediately,” according to an Amazon spokesperson. In the same statement, the company says it is reviewing its current business relationship with The Weinstein Co.; the studio is partially producing two upcoming Amazon series, Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs and an untitled David O. Russell project.