Billboard fired me over bogus claims of sexual harassment: suit
The former senior director at Billboard magazine is suing the company for giving him the boot — over what he claims are bogus allegations that he sexually harassed British musician NEO 10Y.
Patrick Crowley, 30 — who was the senior director of the magazine’s LGBTQ section, Pride — was fired in February following BuzzFeed’s inquiries about allegations that he had sent the musician sexual Instagram messages.
NEO 10Y — whose real name is Nik Thakkar — provided the news outlet with messages from Crowley that said, “Find me a decent looking guy to send me nudes and give me occasional compliments lol….Nudes as many as they want.”
But in Crowley’s new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit he claims he never sexually harassed Thakkar, 30.
The lawsuit says Thakkar retaliated because Crowley took Thakker’s song off of a monthly Billboard playlist and because he didn’t include Thakkar’s songs in the magazine’s “best songs of 2018” list.
Crowley, of Astoria, says that Billboard fired him after only having conducted a 12-hour investigation after BuzzFeed called for comment, according to the court papers.
The suit says straight workers facing more serious sexual harassment allegations weren’t fired.
“Mr. Crowley was, therefore, treated differently in part because he is gay,” the lawsuit charges.
Crowley’s lawyer, Walker G. Harman Jr., said the Instagram message was “all silly banter…Nowhere in it does Patrick ask for nude photographs. Nowhere does Thakkar say I’m offended.”
After the article was published others came forward on Twitter with similar claims against Crowley that Harman says “are patently false.”
Thakkar told The Post in an Instagram message that he “released the truth about this type of systemic behavior from the perpetrator which has been further verified by countless other artists and individuals – both publicly and privately to me.”
A spokesperson for Billboard said, “we conducted a thorough investigation which resulted in the termination of his employment.”
“Billboard condemns the effort by Mr. Crowley’s lawyers to intimidate his alleged victims into silence,” the rep added.