Sheryl Crow faced sexual harassment from Michael Jackson's late manager Frank DiLeo

NZ Herald

13 Jun, 2021 08:25 PM4 mins to read

The music star opened up about experiencing sexual harassment early in her career. Photo / Getty Images

Country music star Sheryl Crow has opened up about being sexually harassed by Michael Jackson's late manager Frank DiLeo on tour in the late 80s.

The nine-time Grammy winner recalled her "big break" in 1987 when she auditioned for the King of Pop's first solo world tour, reports People.

Speaking to the Independent, she reflected that "naiveté is such a beautiful thing".

"It was incredible in every way, shape, and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star ... but I also got a crash course in the music industry."

Crow remembered seeing stories in the press that Jackson had fallen in love with his "sexy backing singer", offering her $2 million to have his baby. She wrote in her memoir audiobook Words + Music that she thought the stories were planted by DiLeo to "make Mike look like he was interested in women".

Crow claimed it was DiLeo himself who was interested in her, making promises to help her career while subjecting her to sexual harassment. She also alleged he threatened to sabotage her career if she refused to cooperate - which she did, returning to LA in 1989 and suffering a bout of depression.

"It's really interesting to go back and revisit some of this old stuff and the experiences that went along with it, and then to compare it with where we are now," she said.

"To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the MeToo movement... it feels like we've come a long way, but it doesn't feel like we're quite there yet."

Her memoir Words + Music was the first time she'd ever talked about it, she said.

"It felt really uncomfortable, but it felt, to me, so much more empowering to be able to talk about it and then play the music that was inspired by it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sheryl Crow (@sherylcrow)

"Isn't that what music is really for? To help us work through whatever our experiences are, and hopefully for the collective to find their own situations in your music too?"

DiLeo has worked with several high-profile artists. He managed Jackson in the late 80s and again in 2009, until the artist's death that June. DiLeo died of heart surgery complications in August 2011 aged 63.

Crow previously told the Guardian the sexual assault allegations against Jackson were like a "death in the family" when HBO doco Leaving Neverland premiered in 2019.

"I think that there were a lot of exceptions made because of the damage that [Jackson] … I mean, he didn't intentionally project it, but it was part of his aura - this almost being untouchable and almost alien-like [figure]," she said.

"And, yeah, I mean, I'm sad, and I'm mad at a lot of people. I feel like there was just a huge network of people that allowed all that to go on. It's just tragic."