Sum 41 singer alleges abuse by ex-manager in new memoir
Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has claimed in a new memoir that he endured years of abuse at the hands of the band’s former manager.
In the memoir, Whibley alleges that Greig Nori, the band’s first manager, groomed and sexually abused him starting when he was a teenager.
In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times, Whibley revealed that he kept the troubling nature of the relationship hidden from his bandmates for many years.
Mr. Nori has dismissed Whibley’s accusations as “false.”
Sum 41, a multi-award-winning punk band formed in 1996, has sold over 15 million albums worldwide.
Whibley’s memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, published Tuesday, chronicles the highs and lows of the band’s early days in the Toronto music scene and its journey to international fame.
Its beginning was aided in part by Mr Nori – then in his 30s and the frontman of a popular Canadian indie band. He met Whibley after a show and begin to mentor him.
Mr Nori later became the fledgling band’s manager.
Whibley said one night, Mr Nori suddenly, “passionately” kissed him in a bathroom stall at a rave, surprising and confusing the then-18 year old, who was high on ecstasy at the time.
He alleges Mr Nori coerced him into an unwanted sexual relationship that lasted about four years.
“Greig kept pushing for things to happen when we were together,” he writes in the memoir, according to the Toronto Star.
“I started feeling like I was being pressured to do something against my will.”
When the physical relationship ended, Whibley, now 44, alleges Mr Nori continued with verbal and psychological abuse.
Whibley alleges he revealed the relationship to his former wife, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, who said: “That’s abuse! He sexually abused you.”
The couple were married from 2006 to 2009.
The Sum 41singer told the Toronto Star in an interview that he thought the relationship with Mr Nori would be “a deep, dark secret I was going to take to my grave”.
“But I didn’t know how to tell the story [of the band] without it, because it was so intertwined with everything that was going on in my life back at that point, almost on a daily basis.”
The band parted ways with Mr Nori in 2005.
Mr Nori told the Globe and Mail that Whibley’s claims were “false allegations”, and said he had retained a defamation lawyer.
The BBC has reached out to Mr Nori for comment.
Whibley told the LA Times he did not warn Mr Nori about the allegations in the memoir before it was published.
“I’ve had an inner battle, like, ‘Why do I want to tell him? Because I feel like I’m supposed to? Because he still has this thing over me?” he told the newspaper.
Sum 41 is currently on its farewell world tour and will be disbanding after 28 years together.
