Depp-Heard verdict will have chilling impact on #MeToo, advocates fear

Drew Dixon is one of several women who came forward with rape allegations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons in December 2017. For more than 20 years, she had kept silent. The secret, Dixon said, felt like a dark cloud looming over her. But in late 2017, she sensed a shift in the atmosphere.

“I said ‘me too’ after 20 years because I felt like this was the moment where I would be heard, and there would be a baseline extension of compassion,” said Dixon, a writer, producer, activist and former executive at Simmons’s label, Def Jam Recordings. (Simmons has denied her allegations.)