John Legend’s longtime manager opens up about the “toxic” side of the music industry and recalls a “terrifying experience” at a Diddy party.

Ty Stiklorius shared in a New York Times piece that her “early encounters with predators, along with those who enabled them, almost drove me to leave the music industry.”

John Legend’s longtime manager, Ty Stiklorius, is sharing her personal experiences within the “toxic” music industry.

In a New York Times article titled “The Music Industry Is Toxic. After P. Diddy, We Can Clean It Up,” published on Thursday, Oct. 31, Stiklorius, who founded the management company Friends at Work and represents artists like Legend, 45, expressed optimism for change in the industry following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Reflecting on her experience attending one of Combs’ New Year’s Eve yacht parties in St. Barts 27 years ago with her brother, Stiklorius—then a recent college graduate—recalled being “led into a bedroom by a man.” She noted she still doesn’t “know who he was or whether he was associated with Mr. Combs.”

“To this day, I can’t recall how I talked my way out of that frightening situation. Maybe my nervous babbling—‘My brother’s on this boat, and he’s probably looking for me!’—convinced him to unlock the bedroom door and let me go,” Stiklorius, now 49, wrote. She added that, at the time, she assumed her experience was “an isolated incident” and merely “one guy acting badly at a drunken party.”

Now, she realizes her experience wasn’t unique in the music industry.

“After 20 years as a music industry executive… [I now realize] what happened that night was not an isolated incident—it was a reflection of a widespread culture within the music industry that encourages sexual misconduct and exploits those aspiring to succeed,” she wrote.

Stiklorius shared that her “early encounters with predators, and those who enabled them, almost caused me to abandon the music business,” but her friend John Legend played a pivotal role in changing her perspective.

“A few years after the boat incident, while I was pursuing my M.B.A. at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, I attended a dinner where a senior music executive discreetly slid his key card under the table to me, a clear invitation to his hotel room. I turned him down,” she recounted.

She added, “I only continued in the industry because, in 2005, an old college friend who was beginning to achieve success as an artist reached out to me.”

That friend was Legend, whom she has now managed for two decades.

“It turns out that many artists, including John, want to be part of a different model of business and culture,” she noted.

In addition to managing Legend, Stiklorius’ company Friends at Work represents artists like Charlie Puth and The National. Over the years, she and Legend have also co-founded businesses such as JL Ventures and the production company Get Lifted Film Co.

In her NY Times article, Stiklorius posed critical questions: “How many other women had experiences like mine and gave up their dreams of becoming artists—or recording engineers, producers, or executives? How many women faced coercion, abuse, assault, and silencing on their path to success, trapped by men who controlled access and led us to believe that the key to success was a key card to their hotel room?”