Charlie Walk’s accuser is twisting the knife a little further. But did anyone really know what was going on?
Things have been relatively quiet on the Charlie Walk front of late. After a flurry of accusations, legal threats, and endless media coverage, people moved on to the next sexual misconduct scandal.
Maybe Charlie Walk’s accuser, Tristan Coopersmith, isn’t so happy with the lull. Earlier this year, Coopersmith’s searing #MeToo letter burned Walk to the ground. And halted an otherwise successful career.
Republic Records (a division of Universal Music Group) put Walk on leave. And Fox effectively nixed Walk from ‘The Four,’ their just-launched singing competition. Walk was the ‘executive judge’ on the show, alongside high-wattage celebs like DJ Khaled and Diddy.
Despite repeated denials of sexual misconduct by Walk, other women piled on while the industry dropped a guilty verdict. A Rolling Stone article included endless sordid stories of sexual assault and abuse, and seemingly slammed the coffin door shut on Walk’s fast-dying career.
+ Charlie Walk Wins the Harvey Weinstein Award for Excellence In Sexual Assault
Maybe that’s not enough.
Now, Coopersmith is broadening her accusations to include co-workers who were complicit with Charlie Walk’s behavior.
Coopersmith’s accusations date back to the early 2000s, when both worked at Columbia Records (part of Sony Music Entertainment). It’s unclear how many people were aware of the situation between Walk and Coopersmith, which (according to Coopersmith) involved persistent harassment, groping, and lots of degrading behavior.
A lot of this stuff happened behind closed doors, and some may have thought the relationship was two-sided and consensual. Others may have just been keeping their heads down in a fear-based corporate culture.
Either way, Coopersmith is now shaming her coworkers for not helping out.
“Every single person that I worked with at Columbia Records was a bystander,” Coopersmith blasted to Variety. “Every one of them, men and women, saw how Charlie behaved, and to my knowledge no one did anything, no one said anything.
“We tell kids in school all the time about bullies. We tell them, don’t be a bystander. It’s like if you see something, say something; if you hear something, do something, you know. That same concept needs to apply in the workplace. I got so many emails from men saying, ‘thank you so much for coming out about Charlie. It was disgusting having to see him mistreat women all of these decades.’
“And I’m like, ‘you didn’t have to see him. You could have done something.'”
Meanwhile, it’s unclear how Walk’s attorneys — who also defended Harvey Weinstein — are planning to counterattack.
Coopersmith said she accepted a cash payoff to go away — but from whom, and for how much? Importantly, Coopersmith offered little email or documented evidence for her abuse claims, making it easier for Walk’s attorneys to attack her credibility.
Ironically, the people that didn’t speak up before may be invited to talk in upcoming legal proceedings — more than a decade later. But that’s not exactly the timing that Coopersmith had in mind.