IN 2004, PAM Kaye, then a regional promotion manager for Columbia Records, was sitting in the back seat of a car next to the label’s executive vice president, Charlie Walk. She had worked with Walk for seven years, including an 18-month stint as his assistant. Over those years, Kaye says, she endured near-constant sexual harassment and inappropriate touching from the label executive. Now, as the car drove back to their Midtown Manhattan office after a late-morning meeting, she claims Walk’s behavior reached a new low.
“He took his hand and put it down the front of my pants,” Kaye, 44, tells Rolling Stone. “I had to subtly try to get his hand away. It’s like a game. He would test the limits as much as he could.” Kaye says she discreetly batted Walk’s hand away, hoping the others in the car wouldn’t notice, but Walk persisted and his hand went underneath her underwear.
“There were other people in the car and all I was thinking was, ‘Are they seeing this?’” she says. “I just felt so much shame. I always thought that people thought that I wanted something from him … which obviously I never, ever did. I always thought that people thought that I was asking for it.” Three of Kaye’s friends confirmed to Rolling Stone that Kaye detailed the incident to them shortly after it happened, including a former co-worker in the car who did not witness it directly but was told by Kaye about it immediately afterward.
“I remember her getting out of the car and being bright red,” says the former co-worker, who asked not to be named. “She was mortified and was just like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’”
It was the most severe incident Kaye says she suffered during her time with Walk at Columbia, but it was hardly the first. There was the listening party in 1998 when she was 25 and she says Walk stuck his tongue in her ear. There was the time they were at a club in South Beach in 2002 when she says Walk came up from behind her while she was dancing and started rubbing himself against her. “Do you need to change your underwear?” Kaye alleges he said to her. “You’re probably wet.” (An unnamed source provided by Walk’s attorneys, who does not know Kaye, says they were with him “90 percent of the evening” and did not witness the interaction; one of Kaye’s coworkers at the time tells Rolling Stone Kaye told her about the alleged incident shortly after it occurred.) There were the times he exposed his penis to her, Kaye says. And there were the multiple instances she claims he would toss her onto a couch in his office, lay on top of her and try to kiss her. “He thought it was funny,” she says. “I’d always push him off.”
“Everyone knew what Charlie was doing,” says Pam Kaye.
According to Kaye and 14 other people who have worked with Walk, this kind of conduct exemplified a decades-long pattern for the current Republic Group president – moreover, most described his behavior as an “open secret.” This article – which includes interviews with five women who say they were sexually harassed by Walk – is the result of interviews with almost two dozen individuals, part of a nearly month-long investigation by Rolling Stone. These five women allege Walk would behave inappropriately toward them, including making sexual comments, sending unsolicited, sexually explicit pictures and video, exposing his penis and inappropriately touching them both in private and in crowded meetings. All the women accusing Walk of misconduct fit the same criteria: They were in their early twenties, relatively new to the industry and working as assistants or in similar positions when they said the harassment against them began.
Walk categorically denies all the allegations in this article. “I did not do these things and this is not who I am,” he tells Rolling Stone in a statement. “Throughout my career I have always sought to conduct myself professionally and appropriately. It is upsetting to be presented with false claims from long ago that I know to be untrue and were never reported. I support the national discussion taking place right now because I believe fully in the importance in treating everyone with respect and dignity at all times.”
A little over a year into her job at Columbia Records in 2006, Kate Harold, then Walk’s executive assistant, took Walk up on his offer to go to dinner with him and some of his friends and business associates. Since starting the position, she says, she had endured over a year of the executive’s near-daily sexual harassment and inappropriate gestures, trying to brush it off to focus on her job. But feeling like she couldn’t say no to her boss, she accepted the invite.
“Shortly into the dinner, I went to the restroom,” Harold, 38, tells Rolling Stone. “When I came out, he was standing right outside the restroom alone… Before I could do anything, he forced his lips on mine with a quick, hard kiss and then rubbed his crotch up against me, letting me basically feel that he had an erection.”
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.”
Fox also issued a statement that day, saying, “We have only recently learned of these past allegations regarding Mr. Walk. We are currently reviewing this matter and are committed to fostering a safe environment on all of our shows.”
After Coopersmith came forward, numerous former employees at Columbia, Epic and Republic began sharing their stories privately about Walk’s alleged inappropriate behavior. But after Walk issued his statement, some of them became angry at what they perceived to be a false denial – and decided to tell their stories publicly to rebuke his statement.
“I don’t think I would have ever [told my story] had he just fucking said sorry,” says Emily, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy. “I know he is a gross person and had he just said sorry to [Coopersmith], I wouldn’t be interested in talking about it.”