"Source" Soap Opera Continues
1 hour, 48 minutes ago Entertainment - E! Online
By Charlie Amter
And you thought you had a crazy week at work.
Source magazine cofounder Raymond "Benzino" Scott, who's most famous for feuding with Eminem for years, has had a whirlwind few days. On Friday, he announced he was quitting the magazine, citing his battles with Eminem and desire to launch a new magazine "for the little guy." Early Monday, he was named in a sexual-harassment and discrimination lawsuit brought by two former female Source execs. By Monday afternoon, he rescinded his retirement and announced in a press release that he planned on making "The Source bigger and better."
All this comes less than a month after Eminem sought to end his long-running battle with the magazine and dropped a federal lawsuit.
But The Source's legal crew is on alert again after former editor-in-chief Kim Osorio and onetime VP of marketing Michelle Joyce filed their lawsuit Monday against Scott and Source magazine CEO David Mays.
The women let loose a barrage of complaints , including allegations that they were ousted from their positions and replaced with men; that Mays routinely "yelled and cursed" at female employees; that Scott allowed other male employees to threaten women with physical violence and to repeatedly harass women inside the magazine's New York City office without reprimands from the magazine's HR department.
"I chose to take a stand for women of the hip-hop generation and for all women who quietly endure such treatment for fear of retaliation and for those women who have suffered in silence and quietly surrendered," Joyce said in a statement released by her legal reps.
"Ms. Osorio and Ms. Joyce have shown extraordinary courage in coming forward, and we will fully vindicate their rights at trial," their attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, said in the statement.
"All women should be treated fairly and with the utmost respect whether they are in the world of hip-hop or not and we will prove that in this case," he continued.
Mays, meanwhile, has already fired back against the allegations, saying the women simply have a case of sour grapes after their respective terminations.
"Neither of those women ever filed any complaints during many years of working at The Source," he said in a statement. "It raises a lot of questions when these types of charges are made subsequent to valid and legitimate terminations of their employment."
The magazine also countered with some harsh allegations against Osorio.
"It is a fact that Osorio had sexual relations with a number of high-profile rap artists during her employment as editor-in-chief," The Source said in a statement. "We also suspect that Joyce falsified health claims in an effort to attack The Source when she learned that she was going to be terminated. We look forward to our day in court on this matter."
When it comes to court showdowns, The Source has a checkered history.
In 2003, The Source won a partial victory and was permitted to release a snippet of early, controversial freestyles by Eminem. The raps contained racial slurs and misogynistic verses. Eminem sued to block the magazine from releasing the lyrics.
Last year, Em scored a major blow against The Source when U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch ordered the magazine to pay the rapper's legal fees after it flauted the court ruling and published the full lyrics.
Shortly afterward, in the track "Like Toy Soldiers" on Encore, Eminem renounced the feud with Benzino. Last month, attorney Donald N. David announced Eminem wouldn't proceed with the copyright-infringement porition of the lawsuit, saying "there is nothing left to win" after Lynch made The Source fork over $130,000 in sanctions.
But Benzino didn't seem been able to let go. "It was a cowardly move for Eminem to back out of his lawsuit against us," he said in a Mar. 28 press release that claimed Eminem chickened out of the court fight to avoid having to take the stand and face The Source's lawyers.
However, in his statement on Friday announcing what turned out to be a short-lived departure from The Source, he said, "I've been consumed too much with the whole conflict thing...the Eminem suit, and I am sick of it."
Now, thanks to Osorio and Joyce, he and his lawyers have a whole new conflict to deal with.
1 hour, 48 minutes ago Entertainment - E! Online
By Charlie Amter
And you thought you had a crazy week at work.
Source magazine cofounder Raymond "Benzino" Scott, who's most famous for feuding with Eminem for years, has had a whirlwind few days. On Friday, he announced he was quitting the magazine, citing his battles with Eminem and desire to launch a new magazine "for the little guy." Early Monday, he was named in a sexual-harassment and discrimination lawsuit brought by two former female Source execs. By Monday afternoon, he rescinded his retirement and announced in a press release that he planned on making "The Source bigger and better."
All this comes less than a month after Eminem sought to end his long-running battle with the magazine and dropped a federal lawsuit.
But The Source's legal crew is on alert again after former editor-in-chief Kim Osorio and onetime VP of marketing Michelle Joyce filed their lawsuit Monday against Scott and Source magazine CEO David Mays.
The women let loose a barrage of complaints , including allegations that they were ousted from their positions and replaced with men; that Mays routinely "yelled and cursed" at female employees; that Scott allowed other male employees to threaten women with physical violence and to repeatedly harass women inside the magazine's New York City office without reprimands from the magazine's HR department.
"I chose to take a stand for women of the hip-hop generation and for all women who quietly endure such treatment for fear of retaliation and for those women who have suffered in silence and quietly surrendered," Joyce said in a statement released by her legal reps.
"Ms. Osorio and Ms. Joyce have shown extraordinary courage in coming forward, and we will fully vindicate their rights at trial," their attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, said in the statement.
"All women should be treated fairly and with the utmost respect whether they are in the world of hip-hop or not and we will prove that in this case," he continued.
Mays, meanwhile, has already fired back against the allegations, saying the women simply have a case of sour grapes after their respective terminations.
"Neither of those women ever filed any complaints during many years of working at The Source," he said in a statement. "It raises a lot of questions when these types of charges are made subsequent to valid and legitimate terminations of their employment."
The magazine also countered with some harsh allegations against Osorio.
"It is a fact that Osorio had sexual relations with a number of high-profile rap artists during her employment as editor-in-chief," The Source said in a statement. "We also suspect that Joyce falsified health claims in an effort to attack The Source when she learned that she was going to be terminated. We look forward to our day in court on this matter."
When it comes to court showdowns, The Source has a checkered history.
In 2003, The Source won a partial victory and was permitted to release a snippet of early, controversial freestyles by Eminem. The raps contained racial slurs and misogynistic verses. Eminem sued to block the magazine from releasing the lyrics.
Last year, Em scored a major blow against The Source when U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch ordered the magazine to pay the rapper's legal fees after it flauted the court ruling and published the full lyrics.
Shortly afterward, in the track "Like Toy Soldiers" on Encore, Eminem renounced the feud with Benzino. Last month, attorney Donald N. David announced Eminem wouldn't proceed with the copyright-infringement porition of the lawsuit, saying "there is nothing left to win" after Lynch made The Source fork over $130,000 in sanctions.
But Benzino didn't seem been able to let go. "It was a cowardly move for Eminem to back out of his lawsuit against us," he said in a Mar. 28 press release that claimed Eminem chickened out of the court fight to avoid having to take the stand and face The Source's lawyers.
However, in his statement on Friday announcing what turned out to be a short-lived departure from The Source, he said, "I've been consumed too much with the whole conflict thing...the Eminem suit, and I am sick of it."
Now, thanks to Osorio and Joyce, he and his lawyers have a whole new conflict to deal with.
