Amazon Studios chief Price suspended

Amazon Studios head Roy Price has been suspended from his job after allegations of sexual misconduct from one of the producers of hit drama The Man in the High Castle.

Roy Price

Isa Dick Hackett, the daughter of late science fiction writer Philip K Dick, made the allegations in yesterday’s edition of The Hollywood Reporter (THR). In the interview, she claimed Price had made unwanted sexual advances toward her two years ago at Comic-Con in San Diego.

“Roy Price is on a leave of absence effective immediately,” said Amazon in a statement issued after the Hackett interview was published. Albert Cheng, chief operating officer at Amazon Studios, will assume Price’s duties on an interim basis, the company added.

Hackett is also exec producer on Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, a coproduction between Amazon and Channel 4 in the UK. Reports of the alleged incidents in San Diego first appeared in August published on the tech news website The Information.

Hackett, in the report published yesterday on THR, said she was inspired to go public after reports and accusations of abuse from several women against the film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Price himself has since become embroiled in the Weinstein scandal after actor Rose McGowan (Charmed), one of the prominent detractors of Weinstein since the allegations against him arose, claimed on Twitter that Price had ignored her complaints “over and over” that she had been raped by the disgraced Hollywood producer.

In a series of tweets directed at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, McGowan wrote: “I told the head of your studio [Price] that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.”

She also alleged that Amazon had “won a dirty Oscar” and called on the company “to stop funding rapists… and sexual harassers.” Amazon won two Academy Awards this year for feature film Manchester by the Sea, whose star Casey Affleck settled sexual misconduct claims from two women in 2010.

Weinstein previously reached an out-of-court settlement with 44-year-old McGowan when she was 23, after an “episode in a hotel room,” reported in an exposé by the New York Times, but has denied many of the sexual assault claims against him.

Weinstein’s spokeswoman said the producer “unequivocally denied” rape allegations made in a report by The New Yorker. Weinstein was sacked by The Weinstein Company, which he co-founded, in wake of the New York Times piece.

Price has declined to comment on the situation.