The former president of the Recording Academy speaks out after he's accused by suspended Grammys chief Deborah Dugan of raping a foreign recording artist.

• Jan 23, 2020

AceShowbiz - The former CEO of the Recording Academy has broken his silence about a new rape allegation against him, calling it "ludicrous and untrue."

Neil Portnow has been accused of raping an unnamed "foreign recording artist" after her show at Carnegie Hall in New York in a document filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by Deborah Dugan, who briefly replaced him as CEO of the Recording Academy before she was ousted at the end of 2019.

Dugan claims members of the Recording Academy board informed her of the accusation against Portnow in May 2019, but in a new statement, he insists his successor's legal documents are "filled with inaccurate, false, and outrageous and terribly hurtful claims against me."

"The suggestion that there was (a rape) is disseminating a lie," he writes. "The baseless complaint about my conduct referenced in the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filing was immediately brought to the attention of the board of directors' executive committee. An in-depth independent investigation by experienced and highly regarded lawyers was conducted and I was completely exonerated. There was no basis for the allegations, and once again I deny them unequivocally."

Dugan was hired to restructure the Recording Academy amid a series of racial and gender diversity issues. She was accused of misconduct and placed on administrative leave earlier this month January 2020 and fired back by accusing her former colleagues of discrimination and sexual harassment.

Her rape accusation against Portnow is one of many she uses to highlight the "egregious conflicts of interest, improper self-dealing... and voting irregularities" at the Recording Academy, calling it "a boys' club."