Former Q101 radio personality sues Cumulus over harassment

Accusations include rude sexually charged comments and discrimination 

As first reported by Radio Insight Friday evening, former Q101 (WKQX-FM) radio personality and producer Justin Nettlebeck has filed a lawsuit against the station’s owner Cumulus Media for sexual and other kinds of harassment.

The lawsuit states Nettlebeck was “subjected to harassment and discriminatory treatment based on his gender, including sexual harassment, as well as retaliation based on his opposition to the harassment and discrimination he suffered. After Plaintiff complained and/or protested the discriminatory treatment, Defendant retaliated by constructively terminating his employment.”

The suit was filed last month as Nettlebeck complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

At Q101 for nearly five years, Nettlebeck exited the alternative rock station a few days after a bizarre on-air exchange between him with then-Q101 program director Troy Hanson on April 21 as documented by a poster on Chicago Media Chat. Listeners weren’t very happy with the interaction, as they voiced their displeasure on how Hanson treated Nettlebeck. Hanson was fired from Cumulus two weeks later after Nettlebeck left and has since relocated to Nashville.

As I said at the time, there was more to the story than what was being told – and according to the lawsuit, Nettlebeck is alleging Hanson harassed him during the time they worked together at the station by showing him explicit images; making derogatory statements about female employees; and also made sexually-charged remarks toward him.

The lawsuit also stated Nettlebeck made his concerns known to Cumulus VP/Market Manager Marv Nyren on several occasions, and alleges Hanson would try to commit suicide if he reported him to human resources. Nettlebeck also accused Hanson of intimidation, threatening remarks, withholding resources, and harshly critiquing him during the show live on the air – as illustrated above. 

In addition to Q101, Cumulus owns conservative talk WLS-AM and classic hits WLS-FM.

Nyren and Q101 are no strangers to legal action. In 2007, Mancow Muller sued Q101 and then-owner Emmis Communications and Nyren (who was also an exec at Q101 during this time) for $6 million a year after he was fired. The lawsuit was settled in 2011, but Mancow – who by this time was morning personality at Cumulus’ then-owned WLUP (now a Christian music station) sued him for a second time in 2017 for the same reasons as Nyren became his boss again after he was appointed Cumulus’ Market Manager. Muller dropped the suit two months later after the two met and “ironed out their differences”.

Among the acquisitions Muller made against Nyren while at Q101 was firing him in a conference room in a cruel way; being subject to a crude on-air skit celebrating his departure and WKQX sales staff even sending advertisers “raw, spoiled rotten, and bloody meat”, referring to him as a “dead cow”.

With this new lawsuit against the station, I guess you can say some traditions at Q101 and Cumulus are like no other and unfortunately, stay the same.

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