Sum 41’s ex-manager fires back at Deryck Whibley’s abuse claims

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Sum 41’s former manager, Greig Nori, has denied frontman Deryck Whibley’s claims that he abused him when he was underage.

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“Deryck Whibley’s recent public accusation that I engaged in a non-consensual sexual relationship with him over 20 years ago is a lie,” Nori said in a statement issued by his lawyer Peter Downard to Postmedia. “There was a consensual sexual relationship.”

In his new memoir, Whibley, now 44, alleges that Nori, now 61, pressured him to be in a sexual relationship when he was underage.

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Whibley alleges in his book, titled Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, that Nori, frontman of Sault Ste. Marie’s Treble Charger, groomed and sexually and verbally abused him for years, beginning when he was just 16 and Nori was 34.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Whibley alleges that Nori gave him his first alcoholic drink when he was underage and became his musical mentor and later, Sum 41’s manager.

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“Greig had one requirement to be our manager — he wanted total control,” Whibley writes in the book (per the Times). “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.”

“The accusation that I initiated the relationship is false. I did not initiate it. Whibley initiated it, aggressively,” Nori said in response. “The accusation that I ‘groomed’ Whibley prior to the beginning of the relationship is false. I was surprised when Whibley initiated it.”

The relationship, Whibley alleges in his book, took a turn he says when Nori, who produced Sum 41’s Does This Look Infected? and Chuck, passionately” kissed him at a rave. 

After the incident, Whibley claims that Nori said they should pursue a relationship because “so many of my rock star idols were queer. … Most people are bisexual; they’re just too afraid to admit it.”

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“He was so relentless and convincing that after a while, I started to believe that maybe he was right,” Whibley writes.

But Nori refutes the implications saying that when they began a romantic relationship “Whibley was an adult, as was I.”

Whibley told the Times that he hasn’t informed Nori of the allegations contained in the book.

“You know, I don’t owe him anything,” he says. “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 controlled everything in my life, but even the rest of the guys through the band. We were all under his wing. Me more, obviously. But he was such a controlling person.”

In an excerpt obtained by PEOPLE, Whibley maintains Nori called him “homophobic” when he tried to put an end to their romantic connection.

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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 writes.

Their sexual encounters ended, Whibley says, when a mutual friend, who categorized their relationship as abusive, discovered what was happening.

Whibley says it wasn’t until he was in his mid-30s, long after they had fired Nori as their manager, that he realized that the power dynamic that existed between the two was wrong.

“It all became so clear,” Whibley tells the Times. “Then about a year later, the Me Too thing started happening. I started hearing stories of grooming, and it all started to make sense.”

But Nori denies pressuring Whibley to remain in the relationship. “The accusation that I pressured Whibley to continue the relationship by accusing him of homophobia is false,” Nori said.

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Nori says that the romantic pairing “simply faded out. Consensually. Our business relationship continued.”

In his statement to Postmedia, Nori goes on to say that he is “shocked” Whibley publicly accused him of abuse “without giving me any opportunity to respond to (the allegations).”

He also hit out at the number of outlets that published Whibely’s allegations “without verifying them.”

“They have done so without giving me a reasonable opportunity to respond, which I requested,” Nori wrote.

Sum 41 are in the midst of their final tour in support of this year’s Heaven :x: Hell LP.

The Canadian punk rockers will wrap up their career with a two-night stand at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 28 and 30.

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