Kirt Webster Said to Have Paid Off Alleged Victims So They’d Keep Quiet
More allegations have surfaced against Nashville publicist Kirt Webster, with a former employee claiming that the PR giant had some of his alleged victims sign non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them to speak of any abuse they may have suffered.
“I’ve sat in meetings where people were paid off to be quiet and we signed non-disclosures to never speak about the stuff that they had done to them," a former female bookkeeper and office manager tells the Tennessean. "There are people that did speak up, did come forward and they were paid off and they went away."
The unnamed source also details a time when she says she and other staff members were at Webster's home following a concert, and the publicist invited a group of men into the hot tub, including a young employee who was too intoxicated to drive himself home.
"And the kid looked at me and said, 'don't leave me here. 'And I left him. I wasn't even thinking. I wasn't considering why he was asking me that. He was fired soon after," she explains.
A number of former Webster employees have come forward in the days following Austin Rick's account of alleged sexual abuse he endured from Kirt Webster. Webster PR client list has dwindled in the wake of the reports of longtime sexual and emotional abuse at the company, with Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Kid Rock, Justin Moore, Big & Rich and many others cutting ties.
Parton addressed the situation in a tweet on Nov. 2, saying she hopes the allegations are "not true." Kid Rock has also made a public statement, telling the Detroit News, “I hope to god this [expletive] he is being accused of is not true as he has been nothing but a good friend to me. But if it comes to light that it is, I will be the first to cut the head off the snake.”
See Which Artists Left Webster PR in Light of Accusations