A top editor at the National Enquirer and other gossip magazines rose to the top of the masthead even after complaints that he forced women employees to watch or listen to porn in the office and engaged in sexually inappropriate discussions.
Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media Inc., nicknamed himself “Dildo” and liked to openly speculate on female workers’ sex lives while talking about his own sexual partners in frank terms, former employees told the Associated Press.
He also invited a dozen employees to Las Vegas in January 2012 for an all-expenses paid, three-day birthday party for himself, dubbed “Dildo’s Dirty 30,” according to a flyer obtained by the AP.
That flyer later prompted American Media to hire an outside consultant to investigate the allegations against Howard, the AP reported Tuesday.
During the inquiry, Howard stopped working in the Los Angeles office of American Media Inc., which owns Us Weekly as well as the National Enquirer.
He quit shortly after the probe — but roughly a year later was rehired by the company and promoted to a top job in its New York office.
American Media said only two female employees made complaints about Howard’s behavior and the outside consultant had not turned up evidence of any serious wrongdoing.
“It was determined that there was some, what you would call as, horsing around outside the office, going to bars and things that are not uncommon in the media business,” American Media attorney Cam Stacher told AP.
American Media on Tuesday said Howard had the company’s full support.
The AP spoke to 12 former employees who all knew something about the prior probe into Howard’s behavior — but only two agreed to be identified.
Maxine Page, a former senior editor at Radar Online, told the news service she complained to American Media HR on behalf of two female reporters targeted for inappropriate comments by Howard.
He told the newsroom he was going to create a Facebook page for the vagina of one of the women, Page said. He also commented on the woman’s sex life and made her and others female employees watch or listen to graphic recordings of celebrities having sex, she said.
Former reporter Liz Crokin said she was also harassed by Howard, who once asked if she was “going to be walking the streets tonight” because of her high heels.
Howard, 35, is also embroiled in the massive sex scandal that’s tainted Hollywood and ended Harvey Weinstein’s career.
The movie mogul, accused of sexual harassment and rape by more than 50 women, relied on American Media and Howard to help him get exclusive rights to damaging stories and then sit on them. Howard also helped gather damaging information on at least one Weinstein accuser, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
American Media told The Times it sometimes worked to gather information to help Mr. Weinstein because of mutual business interests.
With News Wire Services