In his forthcoming book Walking Disaster, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley details for the first time how he was bullied early in his career by Greig Nori, the band’s first manager and a member of the punk band Treble Charger.
Whibley before the publication of the book is LA Timestold about his relationship with Nori. According to the Sum 41 singer, Nori verbally and sexually harassed her for years. Greig Nori has not yet responded to the allegations.
Whibley claims he first met the then 34-year-old Nori, who was a true icon, at the age of 16. Whibley first met Nori by hanging out backstage at a Treble Charger concert to invite her to a Sum 41 gig. Whibley and Nori exchanged numbers and talked for hours afterwards.
Nori eventually became Sum 41’s manager and Whibley’s mentor, recording studio sessions for the band and taking them to parties to build connections within the music industry. Whibley was 18 when she claims Nori grabbed her face and kissed her in a toilet at a party. According to the member of Sum 41, he didn’t think that Nori was attracted to him at all before, but the manager insisted that they discover more about what they have in common, because according to him, most rock stars are gay or bisexual anyway, they just don’t dare to admit it. Whibley writes in his book that Nori continued to force meetings between the two, and when the Sum 41 singer tried to end the relationship, the manager accused him of homophobia and began listing what he owed him for launching Sum 41’s career.
According to the book, Nori stopped sexually abusing Whibley when a mutual friend of theirs found out what was going on between them. From there, however, Whibley remembers, Nori became even more verbally ruthless towards Whibley. Nori also insisted on receiving author credit for Sum 41’s songs, justifying all of this by saying that the band would be taken more seriously this way.
Sum 41 finally parted ways with Nori in 2005, but Whibley never told his band mates what happened between them, Sum 41 attributed the manager’s firing to Nori’s unreliability. in a lawsuit.
Even before the publication of his book, he did not speak publicly about the harassment. Whibley told the LA Times he didn’t tell anyone about Nori’s harassment for a long time, but in 2004, when he told his then-wife Avril Lavigne about what happened, the singer said Nori had sexually assaulted her, which Whibley’s current wife Ariana Cooper also confirmed in it.
Sum 41 recently announced its disbandment, but the band will say goodbye with one more tour, which will also include Budapest in November.
