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"Something Seriously Amiss" and a "Coup": What Is Happening at the Grammys?
Ten days before this year's ceremony, the Recording Academy's new president and chief executive, Deborah Dugan, was placed on leave.
After being installed as president and chief executive of the Recording Academy in August and promising to usher in changes for the first Grammys under her leadership, Deborah Dugan has been placed on leave. The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday night, just 10 days before this year's awards, that Dugan had been accused of misconduct and removed from her position pending an independent investigation. Additional reporting, however, has said that before she was placed on leave, Dugan had filed a memo expressing concerns about the organization's governance, and claimed that "something was seriously amiss at the Academy." Another report has said that what happened was perhaps a "coup" within the academy.
In a statement provided to Vanity Fair, the Recording Academy said, "In light of concerns raised to the Recording Academy Board of Trustees, including a formal allegation of misconduct by a senior female member of the Recording Academy team, the Board has placed Recording Academy President and CEO Deborah Dugan on administrative leave, effective immediately.
"The Board determined this action to be necessary in order to restore the confidence of the Recording Academy's Membership, repair Recording Academy employee morale, and allow the Recording Academy to focus on its mission of serving all music creators," the statement continued. "Board Chair Harvey Mason Jr. will serve as interim President and CEO pending the conclusion of the investigation."
On Friday the nature of the misconduct allegation remained in question, and the academy didn't respond to a follow-up question on what it entailed. But the New York Times reported that the complaint was filed by an assistant who had worked for Neil Portnow, Dugan's predecessor, before working temporarily for Dugan. According to the Times, the assistant accused Dugan of a "bullying management style" that "contributed to the assistant taking a leave of absence."
Moreover, the Times reported that Dugan's ouster "came less than three weeks after she sent a memo to the academy's head of human resources that detailed her concerns about the governance and practices of the organization, which she said led her to believe that 'something was seriously amiss at the Academy.'" The academy hasn't returned follow-up questions from V.F. about the contents of that memo and whether it was related to Dugan's ouster.
If there weren't enough reasons to wonder about how this sudden, ill-timed change came about, Variety reported that "what may have taken place was a 'coup': a move by entrenched academy veterans to discredit and remove Dugan, who came in promising significant changes to the organization, before she could establish herself with a successful first show."
This year's upcoming ceremony had been positioned as a new chapter for the much-criticized awards after Dugan, the academy's first female president, replaced Portnow, who infamously claimed that women should "step up" in response to the show's dearth of female awardees in 2018. (He later claimed the comment had been taken out of context.) The current crop of nominees, the first under Dugan, was perceived as young and diverse enough that it sparked at least one claim that the Grammys, perpetual home of U2 and Sting, might now be...biased against aging rock stars.
The performers for the January broadcast have recently begun to be announced, an unusually up-to-date roster that includes Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Rosalía, Tyler, the Creator, and Ariana Grande. Last year Grande skipped the Grammys after saying that she felt creatively "stifled" by the show's executive producer, Ken Ehrlich.
Portnow's comment on women in music was mocked by Dua Lipa as she accepted her best-new-artist award last year—"I guess this year we really stepped up"—and now by Dugan's lawyer, Bryan Freedman. In a tweeted statement, he said, "What has been reported is not nearly the story that needs to be told. When our ability to speak is not restrained by a 28-page contract and legal threats, we will expose what happens when you 'step up' at the Recording Academy, a public nonprofit." Freedman couldn't immediately be reached for further comment.
For now it remains unclear what exactly led to Dugan's removal, and what effect it will have on the Grammys next Sunday. But whatever halo effect had come from her short tenure has been substantially interrupted—and, if some of these other reports pan out, may be dramatically overshadowed by the upheaval within the organization itself.
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Dan Adler
Dan Adler is a staff writer at Vanity Fair, covering subjects for the Vanities section including arts, culture, and crime. At VF, he has written profiles of athletes and musicians, reported on R. Kelly's and Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trials, and investigated the scandals at Hillsong Church. He was born in... Read more
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