Heather Parry Leaves Live Nation Productions – Variety



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Live Nation Entertainment announced Thursday that Heather Parry would leave the company as a result of a Variety investigation of allegations of intimidation at work.

Parry directed for three years Live Nation Productions, the television and cinema branch of the conglomerate on tour. In December, Variety reported that Live Nation's human resources department had been warned repeatedly that Parry verbally abused his subordinates. Parry has also been accused of using offensive insults in the office and denigrating African Americans. She denied ever using discriminatory language and apologized for the harm she could have caused, claiming that it was not intentional.

Parry was discharged on December 21, when Live Nation hired an outside firm, Paul Hastings LLP, to investigate. The investigator, Elena Baca, interviewed many current and former employees who, in many cases, reiterated allegations they had already made to the company's human resources department. Baca also seemed determined to find the leaks, asking several employees to identify who had recorded an internal meeting and who had hijacked the company's Twitter feed to attack Parry and his managing director, Michael Rapino.

"Heather Parry will leave Live Nation, from now on," the company said in a statement. "Live Nation is engaged in the Live Nation Productions division and our portfolio of artist-led projects, which will be led by current leaders Ryan Kroft, Matt Stein and Chad Wasser.

In her own statement, Parry stated that she was "grateful" that the internal investigation revealed that she had not made discriminatory statements.

"Being accused of something that I am not in the media has been incredibly painful," she said, adding that her "passion" for music, television and movies made her "implacable, because nothing great value is never easy. "

"As a boss, I am tough and brutally honest, and through this process, I learned how to become a more effective leader, but also a better person," she said. "I am humble and I will take advantage of this experience and look forward to continuing my career as an independent producer."

Parry has arrived at Live Nation after a decade as the leader of Happy Madison Productions, Adam Sandler's company. Variety interviewed 23 former employees of Live Nation and Happy Madison, most of whom refused to give their names. Wynn Wygal, a former employee of Live Nation, described Parry as an "emotional terrorist."

"On several occasions, colleagues came to me with dismay and often cried over the way Heather treated them that day," Wygal said.

Another Live Nation employee, Joseph Shepherd, said that he had heard Parry use the words "f – got" and "c – t". Shepherd also said that Parry had already been frustrated by an African-American employee. "Blacks, you can not count on them for anything. A former assistant also said that Parry had thrown him a big iPhone charger, which a second employee corroborated. Parry denied the incident through the intermediary of his lawyer.

Other former assistants said that she would reprimand them for minor slippages and that she would often call at odd times with extreme demands.

"I think it embodies everything that is wrong in the entertainment industry," said Eric Lucht, one of Parry's former assistants at Happy Madison.

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