Hours after Harvey Weinstein was fired by the Weinstein Company board, Defy Media sacked Andy Signore, creator of the Honest Trailers series, from his post of senior vice president (content) of the Screen Junkies YouTube channel following several allegations of sexual harassment.
“Defy Media and Screen Junkies have today terminated Andy Signore’s employment, effective immediately. There is simply no justification for this egregious and intolerable behaviour,” the statement by the company said.
— DEFY Media (@defymedia) October 9, 2017
Defy Media had received complaints against Signore, after which it launched an investigation. The matter went public on October 6 when a woman, Emma Bowers, who had worked as an intern for Signore, recounted her experience with Signore on social media.
Anyway, here’s the whole story about how the @screenjunkies guy wanted to jack off in front of me pic.twitter.com/wpKlXT2fgN
— An Emerican Werewolf (@EmmaBowers) October 6, 2017
Following Bowers, April Dawn, a Screen Junkies fan tweeted a detailed account of the extent to which Signore harassed her. She said that Signore threatened to fire her boyfriend Josh Tapia, an employee of Screen Junkies, if she ever spoke about her experience.
I know many have questions regarding what happened to me regarding Andy, here is a more detailed summary of what I've been going through. pic.twitter.com/tIbHnLBrOB
— AprilDawn OfThe Dead (@April13Dawn) October 6, 2017
A more detailed statement on the harassment I received from Andy Signore. pic.twitter.com/wVGwr8ATCa
— AprilDawn OfThe Dead (@April13Dawn) October 6, 2017
Other acquaintances of Signore and former Screen Junkies employees came forward with their allegations that Signore was a bully and a sexual predator.
Signore, a popular name among online film fans, rose to fame with the Honest Trailers series that took apart popular Hollywood films in the form of satirical trailers. The channel was launched in 2012 and has over six million subscribers, with most videos gaining over two million views each. In 2016 and 2017, the series got primetime Emmy nominations in the outstanding short-form variety series category.
After Defy Media released a statement, Dawn tweeted: “FINALLY. Still didn’t address why nothing was done involving my statements, but hopefully they will shed light on this soon. A great step.” while Bowers wrote, “Been a fun 72 hours fam. Amazed it only took 72 hours to destroy something over 7 years in the making.”
FINALLY.
— AprilDawn OfThe Dead (@April13Dawn) October 9, 2017
Still didn’t address why nothing was done involving my statements, but hopefully they will shed light on this soon. A great step. https://t.co/h6QEierVUb