Amazon Studios head Roy Price quits after sexual harassment claims

Amazon Studios have said that they accepted the resignation of top executive, Roy Price, following sexual harassment allegations made by a producer on the Amazon series ‘Man in the High Castle’.

Price was put on leave last week, and was not expected to return. An Amazon spokesman confirmed the resignation on Tuesday and had no additional comment.

The accusations against Price came in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which has taken Hollywood by a storm. The producer Isa Hackett, charged in an account published in the Hollywood Reporter, that Price had repeatedly and crudely propositioned her following a 2015 event in San Diego.

Isa Hackett (Photo: Getty)

Sad that when Isa Hackett told Amazon two years ago what Roy Price said nothing happened but when she told the press, then they reacted.

— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) October 17, 2017

The company’s head of video content had also been accused of ignoring Rose McGowan’s claims that Weinstein raped her.

A representative for Price confirmed that he had decided to step down, on Tuesday.

This move comes just days after Amazon’s senior vice-president of business development, Jeff Blackburn, sent a memo to employees, saying that the company did not tolerate abuse or harassment.

The statement, seen by the Press Association, read: “The news coming out of Hollywood over the past week has been shocking and disturbing – and unfortunately we are a part of it. It’s sad and very disappointing to me.

“Amazon does not tolerate harassment or abuse of our employees or our business partners.”

In the Hollywood Reporter, Hackett alleged that Price had repeatedly propositioned her on the way to, as well as during an Amazon party at Comic-Con in San Diego, back in 2015.

She claimed that she had made it absolutely clear to Price that she was not interested and told him that she was a lesbian with a wife and children.

Earlier, McGowan – one of the first women to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment – had written “HW raped me” in a series of tweets to the Amazon chief executive and founder Jeff Bezos.

Rose McGowan with Amazon studio head Roy Price in June, 2016 (Photo: Daily Mail)

She posted: “I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.”

Weinstein has “unequivocally denied” any allegations of non-consensual sex.

Suspended Amazon executive Roy Price and Harvey Weinstein together at Park Hyatt Hotel on June 6, 2017 in New York City. pic.twitter.com/uy4WI3456C

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) October 13, 2017