Andy Signore, the creator of the popular video series, “Honest Trailers” and the website Screen Junkies is now suspended from the parent company Defy Media after multiple women came forward on Twitter Friday accusing him of sexual harassment.
The allegations came after the New York Times published a bombshell report about a series of sexual harassment settlements involving Hollywood power broker and film executive Harvey Weinstein. Since then, women throughout the industry have been coming forward to tell their own stories of abuse.
Emmas Bowers, a former intern for Signore, and April Dawn, the girlfriend of one of his employees, accused the film director of sexual harassment. Bowers was the first to post her story to Twitter on Friday, with Dawn and two other women following suit.
Defy Media released this statement on Friday about Signore’s suspension:
We have been conducting a thorough investigation into allegations made against Andy Signore and are preparing to respond to those allegations and take appropriate action. Given the additional statements that were made today, we feel it is necessary to suspend Andy’s employment while we continue our investigation. We will take all necessary action once the investigation is fully complete.
Dawn, who was also once a candidate for a position with the company, accused Signore of sexual assault on Twitter.
After a series of tweets about their encounters, she released this longer statement accusing the company’s HR department of covering for Signore.
Bowers, the former intern for Screen Junkies, claimed Signore propositioned masturbating in front of her.
Signore allegedly began making the inappropriate comments after he saw one of Bowers’ amateur pinup photos she posted. Bowers said she felt pressured to keep silent because she was an aspiring costume designer who didn’t want to ruin an opportunity.
″‘You must think I’m so silly ‘lol jacking it to you in your undies,’” Bowers recounted. “Haha, that’s so funny to say that to a girl who’s your intern.”
After the first two accusations hit the internet, multiple women posted their own stories or sent them privately to Dawn. They have posted screenshots of communications with Signore and detailed similar encounters with the married “Honest Trailers” creator.
“Honest Trailers” just won a Streamy Award in September for a collaboration with Ryan Reynolds. The series has also earned multiple Emmy nominations. The premise of these videos is typically to spoof popular movie trailers by talking about the unsavory details the studios wouldn’t want you to focus on. This often means highlighting poor scriptwriting or tabloid news surrounding the stars.
In 2016, “Honest Trailers” made a video for the “Ghostbusters” reboot that had the sexist line, “These Ghostbusters have no dick ― or chemistry.” The comment section was disabled on YouTube. “We thought it might spur some press,” Signore told The Wrap about avoiding the comments.
HuffPost reached out to Signore about the allegations, but did not immediately hear back.
Doha Madani contributed to the reporting.
