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Lawyer for just-ousted Grammys CEO fires back
NEW YORK >> Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan, who the company announced Thursday was placed on administrative leave, has fired back in a statement through her lawyer, saying: “What has been reported is not nearly the story that needs to be told.”
The academy said late Thursday that its leader of just six months was put on leave following an allegation of misconduct by a senior leader at the organization — just 10 days before the 2020 Grammy Awards.
But in a statement released Friday to The Associated Press, Dugan’s attorney Bryan Freedman said there’s more to the story.
“What has been reported is not nearly the story that needs to be told,” the statement read. “When our ability to speak is not restrained by a 28page contract and legal threats, we will expose what happens when you ‘step up’ at the Recording Academy, a public nonprofit.”
Dugan became the first woman appointed to lead the academy when she began the job in August. Recording Academy Board Chairman Harvey Mason Jr. will serve as interim president and CEO of the academy.
Scarlett Johansson, Sterling K. Brown among SAGs presenters
LOS ANGELES >> Scarlett Johansson, Sterling K. Brown and Taika Waititi will be up for Screen Actors Guild Awards and also handing them out at Sunday’s ceremony.
They’re part of a new batch of SAG Awards presenters announced Friday, along with Roman Griffin Davis, Jason Bateman, Lili Reinhart and Kaitlyn Dever.
They’ll join previously announced presenters including Lupita Nyong’o and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio, who will present the SAG Life Achievement Award to Robert De Niro.
The 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be held Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
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NEW YORK >> Rapper Eminem once again dropped a surprise album, releasing “Music to Be Murdered By” on Friday — along with a video that calls for changes to gun laws.
The follow-up to 2018’s “Kamikaze” — also released without warning — was announced on Twitter just after midnight.
The Detroit rapper’s new music video for “Darkness,” one of the album’s 20 tracks, depicts a shooting at a concert. The lyrics and storyline of the video specifically allude to the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. It closes with audio and video footage of news broadcasts from other recent mass shooting around the U.S. and an appeal to register to vote.
“When will this end? When enough people care,” reads the text at the end of the video. “Register to vote at vote.gov. Make your voice heard and help change gun laws in America.”
A link to the music video on Eminem’s website encourages viewers to contact or visit several gun violence prevention organizations, including Everytown for Gun Safety and Sandy Hook Promise.
The cover art features blood spatter and a bearded Eminem clad in a suit and fedora and holding a shovel. An alternate cover features the same splatter, with a now hatless Eminem holding both a hatchet and a gun to his head in an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 album of the same name: “Inspired by the master, Uncle Alfred!” Eminem tweeted.