The woman at the center of the scandal that brought down former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd came forward Sunday, saying she was “surprised and saddened” that Hurd had lost his job as head of the world’s largest technology company.
Jodie Fisher, a 50-year-old former saleswoman and sometime actress who has appeared in little- known films and a short-lived reality-TV series, said in a statement from Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred that she has resolved her claim against Hurd privately and reiterated that she and Hurd did not have a sexual relationship.
“I was surprised and saddened that Mark Hurd lost his job over this. That was never my intention,” the woman said in her statement.
In a case that shocked Silicon Valley and Wall Street, Hurd resigned unexpectedly Friday after HP officials said they had investigated a sexual-harassment complaint from the woman, a contract employee on marketing projects for the chief executive’s office.
HP officials said their investigation did not substantiate the sexual-harassment complaint. But the company said it found instances in which Hurd submitted false expense accounts as well as instances in which the woman received payment for which there was not a legitimate business purpose.
Hurd has denied any sexual relationship, and a source familiar with the case said Hurd has denied ever pressuring her to have sex. The Mercury News reported late Friday that a source said Hurd paid the woman an unspecified amount of money to resolve her complaint.
Fisher is a single mother, originally from Dallas, who has worked in sales for a Fortune 500 company as well as for a commercial-real-estate firm in Dallas, according to Allred. She also appeared in several minor films, including some that Allred described in the statement as R-rated, when she was in her 30s.
A list of her films found on the Internet includes such titles as “Easy Rider — The Ride Back,” “Blood Dolls,” “The Outsider,” “Sheer Passion” and the unrated “Body of Influence 2.”
More recently, Fisher was listed as a cast member of a short-lived reality-TV show called “Age of Love,” in which a 30-year-old man went on dates with several women in different age ranges, including their 20s, 30s and 40s.
In her statement, Fisher said, “Mark and I never had an affair or intimate sexual relationship.”
She added that she worked for HP under contract from 2007 to 2009, working on “high-level customer and executive summits” held in the United States and abroad.
“I prepared for those events, worked very hard and enjoyed working for HP,” she said. “I have resolved my claim with Mark privately without litigation, and I do not intend to comment on it further. I wish Mark, his family and HP the best.”
