Aside from the success and accolades of Golden Globe-winning "Bohemian Rhapsody," (which he was fired from for unrelated reasons , but remains credited) Singer was tapped this fall to direct "Red Sonja," in which the protagonist is a survivor of sexual assault.

Like R. Kelly, who allegedly preyed on black girls who were predominantly from low-income backgrounds and lacked systems of support, "[t]he portrait of Singer that emerges is of a troubled man who surrounded himself with vulnerable teenage boys, many of them estranged from their families," The Atlantic reports.

And he was abetted, in a less direct way, by an industry in which a record of producing hits confers immense power: Many of the sources we interviewed insisted, out of fear of damaging their own career, that we withhold their name, even as they expressed dismay at the behavior they’d witnessed."

There's a theme that unites Singer's alleged victims: they were unprotected, mostly gay, mostly alienated from family and resources, which made them vulnerable to being seduced by and manipulated through attention, protection, and promises that their lives could change if they just went along.

The authors of The Atlantic investigation say Hearst executives killed the Singer exposé after months of reporting, fact-checking and vetting, suggesting that perhaps the circle of complicity —or at least uneasy silence — spans multiple industries.

In the cases of Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly , late-in-the-day denouncements meant to absolve collaborators and enablers felt like hollow gestures, carrying as they did little professional risk by the time many spoke out.