- Music
- 14 Apr 16
The electro-pop artist shares her horror stories of sexual harassment
The larger than life Canadian musician Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, has been speaking about sexism and the commonplace nature of sexual blackmail in the music business.
The topic arose during an interview with Boucher, carried out by Rolling Stone magazine. Grimes was asked about the recent lawsuit between the pop singer Kesha and producer Dr Luke. The court case centres around a contract dispute and allegations from Kesha of sexual assault by Luke – which Luke has completely denied.
"I will say that I've been in numerous situations where male producers would literally be like, 'We won't finish the song unless you come back to my hotel room'," Grimes told the magazine.
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"If I was younger, or in a more financially desperate situation, maybe I would have done that. I don't think there are few female producers because women aren't interested. It's difficult for women to get in. It's a pretty hostile environment."
Grimes – a Hot Press cover star – also talked about the sexism that is still evident in the business. "Going into studios, there’s all these engineers there, and they don’t let you touch the equipment," she said. "They’d be like 'No, just tell us what to do, and we’ll do it'. And then a male producer would come in, and he’d be allowed to do it. It was so sexist... It made me really disillusioned with the music industry."