In his newly released memoir, “Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell,” Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley makes shocking allegations against the band’s former manager, Greig Nori. Whibley accuses Nori of grooming and sexually abusing him starting when he was a teenager.
Whibley, now 44, recounts the alleged abuse in detail, including an incident where Nori, then in his 30s, suddenly kissed him in a bathroom stall at a rave when Whibley was 18. The singer claims Nori coerced him into an unwanted sexual relationship that lasted about four years.
“Greig kept pushing for things to happen when we were together,” Whibley writes in the memoir. “I started feeling like I was being pressured to do something against my will.”
Whibley’s ex-wife, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, reportedly recognized the abuse when Whibley confided in her. “That’s abuse! He sexually abused you,” she said.
Nori has denied the allegations, calling them “false” and retaining a defamation lawyer.
Whibley kept the alleged abuse secret from his bandmates for years but felt compelled to reveal the truth in his memoir. “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,” he told the Toronto Star.
Sum 41 parted ways with Nori in 2005 and are currently on their farewell world tour.
“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?” Whibley told the Los Angeles Times.
The BBC has reached out to Nori for further comment.
With “Walking Disaster,” Whibley sheds light on the dark side of Sum 41’s rise to fame.
