Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has accused his former manager and mentor Greig Nori of sexual and verbal abuse, starting when Whibley was a teenager.
The Canadian-born singer discusses the allegations as part of his upcoming memoir, “Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell,” which was released on Tuesday. Nori is the frontman of the Canadian band Treble Charger. The two met when Whibley was 16 and Nori was 34, per People.
Whibley claimed Nori spoke of a “special connection” they shared and was the first person to give him alcohol. Nori served as a musical inspiration for Sum 41 and eventually became the band’s manager.
“Greig had one requirement to be our manager — he wanted total control,” Whibley asserted in the book. “We couldn’t talk to anyone but him, because the music business is ‘full of snakes and liars’ and he was the only person we could trust.”
Whibley accused Nori of “passionately” kissing him when he was 18. The singer claims to have told Nori that he was not gay. Nori allegedly responded by saying most rock stars are “queer” and that “most people are bisexual; they’re just too afraid to admit it,” according to the Los Angeles Times. They began to have sexual encounters, Whibley claimed.
“He was so relentless and convincing that after a while, I started to believe that maybe he was right,” Whibley wrote in his memoir.
Nori also allegedly told Whibley that he wasn’t gay either, but said Whibley “brought it out in him because what we had was so special.” Whibley wrote about how Nori became angry and called him “homophobic” for trying to end the sexual encounters.
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“He told me this was all my fault to begin with because I should never have said yes to it in the first place. I started this and now he was in it with me so I couldn’t just stop,” Whibley wrote in the book.
The Sum 41 singer said he told his ex-wife, singer Avril Lavigne, about the abuse while they were dating and also told his current wife, model Ariana Cooper. He said both women agreed that Nori’s alleged behavior was abusive.
Whibley wrote that Cooper said, “He groomed you from a young teen and mentally forced you. You said no, you didn’t want to do this anymore, and he told you it had to continue or you would lose everything. That’s psychological, mental, and physical abuse.”
The recording artist wrote about how the alleged sexual abuse ended but verbal abuse continued until Nori was fired by the band in 2004.
