Amazon suspends studio head over sexual harassment allegations

Amazon Studios has suspended its top entertainment executive over sexual harassment complaints, according to reports late Thursday.

The move comes days after Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was fired from his production company amid reports of sexual misconduct and rape, bringing the issue of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry to center stage.

Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios, was placed on a leave of absence “effective immediately,” the company — which is owned by Amazon.com Inc.

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  — told Variety on Thursday. That followed a report earlier in the day by the Hollywood Reporter, which published an interview with an Amazon producer detailing lewd comments and behavior by Price.

In that report, Isa Hackett, a producer on Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle,” claimed that Price sexually propositioned her and repeatedly harassed her at a party in 2015. Hackett said she reported the incident to Amazon immediately, but never heard the results of an internal investigation.

Hackett told the Hollywood Reporter that the Weinstein scandal prompted her to speak now. “As somebody with some power, I feel it is imperative for me to speak out,” she said. Hours after the report was published, the studio announced his suspension.

Also see: Sage advice from wise women — like Samantha Bee — on how not to sexually harass them

Meanwhile, one of Weinstein’s accusers, actress Rose McGowen, said Thursday that she had told a top executive at Amazon Studios that Weinstein raped her, and “begged” a studio head not to work with Weinstein. It was not immediately clear if that studio head was Price.

“@jeffbezos I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof,” she said in a tweet to Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.

McGowan said that Amazon then killed a project she was developing with the studio, while it continued to work with the Weinstein Co. on two upcoming series.

Read: The Weinstein Co. struggled financially even before Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct allegations

“@jeffbezos I am calling on you to stop funding rapists, alleged pedos and sexual harassers. I love @amazon but there is rot in Hollywood,” McGowan tweeted.

McGowan was at the center of another internet firestorm Thursday, after Twitter Inc.

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  suspended her account for 12 hours starting Wednesday night for reportedly posting a private phone number, which is against the social network’s terms of service