LA Reid — notorious for lavish spending before he was ousted as the CEO of Epic Records last week — once hired a high-priced escort as a birthday present for an underling, the birthday boy told me.
Reid, who The Post reported was hit with sexual harassment allegations before Sony Music head Rob Stringer let him go, was the boss at Arista Records in 2001 when he celebrated a colleague’s birthday with drinks at a Midtown hotel.
The birthday boy brought along a female friend as his date, but when they arrived, Reid took him aside. “LA gave me a key and sent me upstairs,” the record exec recalled. Inside the hotel room he found “a gorgeous brunette,” whom Reid had hired for the occasion.
Asked if he was worried about leaving his date downstairs, the exec said, “I really didn’t care at this point.” After the quick tryst, the exec rejoined his date and Reid in the lobby. “We finished cocktails as if nothing happened. It happened to me, but it could have happened to anyone at the label.”
Reid, who started out as a drummer and then became the songwriting and producing partner of Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, helped develop the careers of Usher, Justin Bieber, Meghan Trainor, Rihanna, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez.
A spokesperson for Reid said the former colleague’s story was “not true.”