How Sony boss Denis Handlin ruined Amy Shark’s golden ARIA Awards night
When the star forgot Denis Handlin in an ARIA acceptance speech, his furious response was described by witnesses as ‘horrid’ and ‘insane’.
Former Sony Music Australia boss Denis Handlin was so incensed that one of the label’s biggest stars, Amy Shark, neglected to thank him for one of her four ARIA Awards in 2018 that she returned to the office the following day to apologise in person and on social media.
The incident provides a glimpse into the workplace culture at one of the country’s most influential record labels.
Shark, who declined to comment, had already thanked Mr Handlin twice during the glitzy awards ceremony at The Star in Sydney on November 28, 2018.
But her oversight in not singling out Mr Handlin for praise when she won her third major award of the evening led to a public dressing-down and demands for multiple apologies.
Three sources who spoke to The Australian on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, described the incident as “horrid”.
Mr Handlin abruptly left Sony on Monday, with the label’s workplace culture now at the centre of an independent investigation started by the company’s global headquarters.
Other executives have left the company in recent days, including Pat Handlin, Denis’s son and the vice president of A&R; and Mark Stebnicki, the company’s senior vice president of strategy, corporate affairs and human resources.
The ARIA Awards of 2018 were shaping up to be the biggest night of Amy Shark’s artistic life. The pop singer-songwriter won four awards including three major categories, and closed the show by performing live with Keith Urban.
But in her third and final speech for album of the year, the overwhelmed musician accidentally forgot to thank the most powerful man in the Australian record industry, Denis Handlin, who was the chairman and chief executive of her label, Sony Music.
Most people would forgive the slip-up and laugh it off. But Handlin was not most people.
Onlookers said he became furious – and a furious Handlin was one of the most intimidating presences in an industry which, to outsiders, appears to be composed of soft edges and glamour.
On Monday morning, Handlin was abruptly removed from Sony Music via an all-staff email sent from its New York head office that ended his employment, effective immediately, after 50 years of working at the company.
It was an extraordinarily sharp dagger to the heart of a man who had spent decades accumulating power, status and influence.
Handlin joined the company in 1970 and rose to the role of managing director by 1984, then chairman in 1996. He became chairman of the ARIA board in 2010, and had raised more than $36 million for charitable causes through the Sony Foundation he created two decades ago.
In a few emailed sentences, all that was extinguished. A goliath had fallen, and the shockwaves continue to reverberate.
So far, the label’s Sydney-based team of publicists have ignored or declined all media queries regarding his dismissal. Sony’s US team has taken over communications, but those staff are also offering no comment.
The corporate silence is deafening, as is the absence of any public mention of Handlin from the label’s biggest stars. Even in the wake of his removal, his shadow looms large.
The ARIA Awards incident of three years ago, though, offers a remarkable insight into his titanic ego, and the potent effect had on those around him.
Long whispered about within the industry, The Australian has this week spoken with three people who were direct witnesses to the events.
Denis Handlin did not respond to The Australian’s request for comment.
The artist at the centre of it – who recently released her second album with Sony, titled Cry Forever – declined to comment.
On that night in November 2018, Amy Shark had already thanked Handlin near the beginning of her two previous speeches, having won best pop release and best female artist.
After being announced as the winner of album of the year for her debut Love Monster, she received a warm embrace from Handlin, who was sat behind her.
She was in tears on her walk from the front row to the stage. After composing herself, she began, “I really, really wanted this – not just for me, but for my whole team.”
Shark had about two minutes to give her speech acknowledging the night’s final and arguably most significant award.
Even in an era where singles are ascendant, album of the year remains the crowning jewel for most artists, who covet the prestige with being acknowledged for writing an original and cohesive set of songs.
Yet when it became apparent that Shark had mistakenly missed a line in her notes thanking her record label and its boss, sources tell The Australian that Handlin was incensed.
“I hadn’t even noticed, because you don’t really pay attention to stuff like that,” said a source.
Sat in the second row, Handlin was in full view of many of the music industry’s key players.
“Everyone’s sitting pretty closely together, particularly up the front,” said a source. “So although the situation only really involved a couple of people, there were at least 50 people from all different companies that would have witnessed what was going on.”
As Shark left the stage, Handlin grabbed several of his trusted lieutenants and issued two demands: get the speech refilmed for the television broadcast, and tell Shark what she’d done.
“Bear in mind, Amy was due on stage with Keith Urban in four minutes, so it was never going to happen – there was never going to be a reshoot,” a source tells The Australian.
“The whole industry would notice – how did he think that was ever going to work in his favour?” said another source of the reshoot request. “When I heard that, I was like, ‘You’re just asking for everyone to notice. That’s insane.’”
Calmer heads surrounding Handlin attempted to placate him by assuring him that she had thanked the label, but the Sony boss was not for moving. In his mind, his artist needed to be put in her place.
“I just wanted the whole thing to go away,” said a source. “She’d just had the night of her life ... I was just trying to shut it down, but it didn’t work, obviously. It got back to her.”
Shark’s inner circle waited until after her finale duet with Urban before telling her in private what had happened.
The pop star was devastated to learn of her omission, and not only because Handlin was furious. “She was upset because she respected him greatly,” said a source. “She was upset because she felt like she’d let him down.”
Handlin, meanwhile, had stormed out of the ceremony and headed to Sony’s exclusive after-party. There, multiple sources later witnessed the label boss and Shark in a “very, very deep conversation” in a cordoned-off area.
The nature of that discussion is known only to the two parties involved, but the result of it was twofold. At some point that night, Shark posed for a celebratory photograph with Handlin, espresso martini in hand.
And the following morning, around 9.00am, the newly crowned queen of Australian pop music rolled into the Sony Music office in East Sydney on minimal sleep to make an apology in the company’s main boardroom.
“Everyone’s hungover as hell,” said a source. “Amy had a cap on and her hair down. Everyone was very dishevelled.”
It is unclear whether she had offered to make the trip or was told to by Handlin.
“I couldn’t believe she was doing that, either of her own volition or of his, I don’t know. But it was awful,” said a source.
“She just had the biggest night of her life, and I don’t think there was anyone in that room with a conscience who didn’t feel bad for her.”
The unsavoury chapter did not cause a rift between the pair, however.
In an interview with The Australian in November last year, Shark spoke glowingly of her relationship with Handlin.
“He’s ended up being more than just the head of Sony for me. I throw around ideas with him like I would my brother,” she said with a laugh.
“For a guy his age, and of his stature, I can really shoot the shit with him and be so honest,” she said. “We’ve had our moments, and he’s had moments with everybody.”
In an interview with The Australian in April for a magazine profile of Shark around her recent album release, Handlin also spoke with affection.
“I’m very proud of her,” he said, sitting in a Sony boardroom in Sydney. “We’re very close, actually. Some people use ‘family’ as a throwaway line, but she really is part of the family here.”
“The great thing is, we also have some really good and healthy debates on videos, artwork and choice of singles, and respect each others’ opinions,” he said. “Sometimes, you have those healthy debates, and then you get to a solution.”
Yet the ARIA Awards incident of 2018 was one of Handlin’s biggest public blow-ups, and those who witnessed it can’t forget the way it all unfolded.
“It was such a moment for her,” said a source. “From my perception, I felt he just ruined what might still be the biggest night of her career. She’d worked away for 10 years to get to that point, and it was really unpleasant.”
The biggest unanswered question, though, is why someone who had spent decades at the top of the Australian music business still felt such a burning need to be thanked in public.
“It was so unimportant,” said a source of Shark’s accidental omission. “It doesn’t matter, especially if the artist comes up to you afterwards and says, ‘I’m really sorry, I meant to thank you’ – of their own volition, not feeling forced to.”
Two days after the ARIA Awards, on November 30, 2018, Shark posted a photo of herself with Handlin, holding an espresso martini and grinning alongside the label boss, whose arm rests on her shoulder.
“I tried for years to convince a record label to sign me. Finally wore them down! We have now won 6 Arias in 2 years!” she wrote on Twitter.
In the tweet, Shark thanked her record labels, Sony Music and Wonderlick, then signed off with a final line: “Thank you Denis Handlin for believing in me.”
I tried for years to convince a record label to sign me. Finally wore them down! We have now won 6 Arias in 2 years! @SonyMusicAU and @WonderlickEnt I love you so much and thank you Denis Handlin for believing in me ðŸ†ðŸ†ðŸ†ðŸ†ðŸ†ðŸ† pic.twitter.com/AcNxgDVvgZ
— Amy Shark (@amyshark) November 30, 2018
Do you know more? Email mcmillena@theaustralian.com.au
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