James Levine victim: I was silenced by the New Yorker

Ashok Pai, whose abuse testimony in the New York Post was the first act in the downfall of the Metropolitan Opera music director, has been talking to Radar online about the long road to publishing his allegations.

He took his story first to the New Yorker where, he says, both critic Alex Ross and reporter James Stewart fobbed him off.

In an email to Stewart he writes: ‘I do want to reflect again about Alex Ross and his screaming at me, I want to make sure you are clear I think it’s totally unethical, inappropriate and wrong for Alex Ross to speak and yell at a sex abuse victim the way he did with me.’

Read his full account here.

UPDATE: Alex Ross has been in touch to say that he disputes this account of his conversation with Ashok Pai.

Radar also publishes a conversation transcript between Pai and James Levine:

Extract:

JL: You’re defining my part and your part. You’re telling me what you can do and what I can do. And if I don’t buy that hook, line and sinker, then I’m a bad person.

AP: Emhmm. Um.

JL: My phone’s running out and I’m over pass anyway. I will either call you back a little later if I get a hole again or I will call you back again on Sunday. And if I can’t call at length, I’ll call short. Ok?

His reasons for recording this conversation are unclear.

Pai’s story was later told both by the Post anonymously and by the Times with his full name.

Levine, who denies the accusations, is now suing the Met for unfair dismissal.