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She was stunned, unable to process what had happened. “I felt extremely dirty and ashamed,” she says. “I was embarrassed. I just felt violated and gross.” One of Harold’s co-workers confirmed to Rolling Stone that Harold told her about the incident within 24 hours.
For Harold, the encounter at the restaurant was the culmination of more than a year of “torture” by Walk in which, she says, he would consistently wink at her, blow kisses, lick his lips suggestively and massage his body in front of her. “Every day was a day of fear,” Harold says. “It was really scary and depressing and probably the worst time of my professional life. Early on in my job, he sat uncomfortably close to me and told me that he could lift my career to extraordinary heights but that I had to be ready to do ‘whatever it takes.’ He was clearly implying that I needed to be willing to sleep with him. As he was saying this, he got up close to my face and winked in a very flirty manner. I completely froze up. I was afraid of him. It made me feel horrible.”
“Sony Music believes in a safe, professional and respectful workplace and will not tolerate behavior that isn’t within these guidelines,” a rep for Sony Music, which owns Columbia and Epic Records, tells Rolling Stone in response to the allegations.
Walk has been in the music industry for more than 30 years, working with artists from New Kids on the Block to Ariana Grande. At Columbia Records, he rose from promotion manager to executive vice president of marketing and promotion before becoming president of Epic in 2006. After being let go from the label in 2008 and starting an ad agency, Walk became executive vice president of Republic Records in 2013, heading up the promotion, public relations and marketing departments. He was promoted to president of the newly formed Republic Group in 2016, where he was instrumental in launching the careers of DNCE, Hailee Steinfeld and Julia Michaels as well as promoting hits by Drake, the Weeknd and Shawn Mendes, among many others. Walk has had a hand in promoting roughly 50 Number One hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with Billboard placing the 51-year-old exec and married father of four on their influential “Power 100” list four years in a row starting in 2015. Though Walk had mainly stayed behind the scenes, the accusations come as Walk’s public profile has risen, thanks to his role as a judge on Fox’s singing-competition reality show The Four alongside Diddy, DJ Khaled and Meghan Trainor, which premiered in early January.
But not long after his start on TV, things began crashing down. On January 29th, Tristan Coopersmith, 42, one of Walk’s former employees at Columbia, posted an open letter on her website accusing Walk of sexual misconduct. “For a year I shuddered at the idea of being called into your office, where you would stealthily close the door and make lewd comments about my body and share your fantasies of having sex with me,” she wrote. “You invited me to dinners that in hindsight I had no business being at, but you did it so that you could put your hand on my thigh under the table, every time inching it closer and closer to my sacred place. You did it so you could lean over and whisper disgusting things into my ear and I had to smile so that no one suspected anything. On multiple occasions your wife was sitting right across from us.” (A friend of Coopersmith confirmed to Rolling Stone that Coopersmith told her about Walk’s behavior at the time.)
That same day, Universal Music Group, which owns Republic Records, issued a statement. “While it appears this blog post relates to the period prior to Mr. Walk’s appointment to his position at Republic Records, we take the allegations very seriously and intend to conduct a full and complete review of the matter,” it read.
Walk also issued a statement, denying Coopersmith’s accusations. “It is very upsetting to learn of this untrue allegation made by someone who worked with me 15 years ago, without incident. There has never been a single HR claim against me at any time during my 25+ year career, spanning three major companies. I have consistently been a supporter of the women’s movement and this is the first time I have ever heard of this or any other allegation – and it is false.”
For Coopersmith, who wrote the initial blog post, the recent spate of women detailing sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men helped spur her to tell her own story. She tells Rolling Stone that she had nightmares and flashbacks about Walk following the allegations against Harvey Weinstein (“It was relentless”) and eventually shared her experiences with close friends before posting the open letter. “High levels of stress and trauma can result in memory repression. It’s a survival mechanism,” says Coopersmith. “When the subconscious is triggered, like mine was with the Weinstein allegations, you unlock, releasing a flood of stored memories and pain. Sharing my story helped the pain subside.” Two days after Coopersmith’s letter, Universal released another statement confirming that Walk had been placed on leave while an investigation into the allegation continued. “Republic Records is committed to a safe workplace environment where employees are treated fairly and respectfully,” the statement read. “We have retained an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation of this matter and have encouraged anyone who has relevant information to speak to the firm’s investigators. Mr. Walk has been placed on leave, and will remain on leave for the duration of the investigation.” (Attorneys for Collazo Florentino & Keil, the firm hired by Universal, declined to comment for this story. When reached for comment about the new allegations, a rep for Universal Music Group referred Rolling Stone to their previous statement.) As of Thursday, the investigation remains ongoing. On January 31st, one day before The Four’s penultimate episode, Walk issued a statement through his attorney Patricia Glaser. “Needless to say, this is very upsetting,” Walk wrote. “Although I continue to support the ‘Me Too’ movement, there has been an extreme rush to judgment against me in this particular case which is unfair and inconsistent with anything that even actually happened. I welcome any investigation, so that in short order these unfounded and hurtful accusations can be put to rest.” The winner of The Four is still set to receive a Republic Records contract, though Walk’s involvement, if any, remains uncertain. Fox, however, has deleted Walk’s image from all of the show’s social media platforms and website. (A representative for Fox declined to comment for this story.) The music industry has largely remained impervious to misconduct allegations in the wake of other industries’ public reckoning of high-profile figures. Last month, however, 14 women in the music industry formed an organization called Voices in Entertainment that encouraged attendees at last month’s Grammys to wear white roses as a show of solidarity. Going forward, the group hopes to increase the number of women in executive positions and inspire mentorship so that, as co-founder Meg Harkins recently told Rolling Stone, “young women … can understand their worth, what their paths can be, and more women [are] represented across the board.” N
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