Video of ex-JWT CEO making inappropriate comments has been released
The video that has become the center of attention in a lawsuit against former J. Walter Thompson CEO Gustavo Martinez has been made public.
In a lawsuit filed last month by JWT’s communications chief Erin Johnson against Martinez as well as JWT and parent company WPP, where she alleged that Martinez repeatedly made rape jokes and racist comments, she and her lawyers claimed to have a video of Martinez at a 2015 company meeting in Miami where he made a number of inappropriate remarks.
The video has now been released by Johnson’s lawyers. In the clip, Martinez says that the hotel they are at is “tricky” and that he might be raped in the elevator but “not in a nice way.”
WPP initially said the video could not be released on legal grounds because it contained agency information that couldn’t be seen by outsiders and would violate privacy of those in attendance, according to Ad Age. Later, the agency said that the video could be released on the grounds that faces were blurred.
After denying the allegations brought against him by Johnson last month, Martinez left JWT and was replaced by Tamara Ingram.