“I always thought I would take this to my grave”: Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley accuses former manager of sexual assault in new memoir
Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has detailed the highs and lows of his life and career in his new memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell.
In the book, he claims he was groomed by Sum 41’s first manager, Greig Nori, and experienced sexual and verbal abuse during the band’s early years.
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Whibley also claims that Nori developed a close relationship with the band and was the first person to introduce alcohol to them. However, the musician states that their professional dynamic suddenly shifted to one that was abusive and manipulative.
In a new interview with the LA Times, Whibley recalls the difficulty in offloading all the stories he’s collected over the years: “I don’t know how to tell the real story without getting into some of this stuff, because it’s all intertwined with my life, intertwined with the music and in the band,” he says. “It’s just such a big part of it.”
Whibley recalls encountering then-34-year-old Nori, who then managed the Canadian punk band Treble Charger, when he was 16. The duo’s working relationship soon began as Nori began helping Sum 41 during the beginning stages of their career.
While at a rave, aged 18, Whibley claims Nori asked him to do ecstasy in a restroom. Within the stall, Whibley writes, Nori “passionately” kissed him and said their relationship “was so special”.
As their working relationship continued, Whibley says he tried to separate himself from the personal dynamic but was called homophobic for not reciprocating Nori’s feelings. However, Whibley was allegedly told by Nori that he “owed” him for supporting his music career.
The sexual encounters reportedly ended once a mutual friend got involved, but Nori continued to be abusive to Whibley through the band. The manager demanded to be made a co-writer on songs and claimed the singer had “gone Hollywood” due to his relationship with musician Avril Lavigne.
It wasn’t until Whibley confided in Lavigne that he heard his story described as abusive. Within the book, he writes that the singer exclaimed, “That’s abuse! He sexually abused you.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone, the singer admits he thought he would take his abusive experience “to the grave”.
“I went through a long period of my time where I didn’t think about it anymore. I came to realise it was self-defence,” he says. “I came to realise later on that I didn’t want to think about it or have any feelings of being a victim. I didn’t want to have victim issues.”
Whibley continues, “I’m dealing with it for the first time and I don’t know what I think about it. I can’t deny that it was very manipulative, but I didn’t really realise what a lot of this was. It didn’t dawn on me until I hit the age he was, in his mid-30s, when I was a teenager. He was a hero, so to see that power dynamic, you see how you can manipulate a 16-year-old kid.”
Speaking to The Times, Whibley revealed that Nori’s controlling behaviour extended past the band but affected his family life too. “He wouldn’t let our parents know anything,” he says.
“He tried to keep them away all the time. Now it makes more sense. Because he was the same age as our parents, and we didn’t know that at the time. He knew they would get suspicious of the way things were running. He would always be like, ‘You can’t have a relationship with your parents and be in a rock band. It’s not cool. It’s going to hurt your career.’”
The Sum 41 musician told Rolling Stone he was inspired to come forward after doing a joint interview with his wife Ariana Whibley, who spoke out about a suicide attempt: “I saw her bravery in that and that inspired me. I became a different person where I felt the importance to just be open.”
Deryck Whibley’s memoir Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell is out now via Simon & Schuster.
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