Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 performs during the Louder Than Life music festival on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, at Highland Festival Grounds in Louisville, Ky.Amy Harris/The Associated Press
Former Sum 41 manager Greig Nori said Thursday that allegations of sexual abuse from the Canadian pop-punk band’s singer Deryck Whibley were “a lie,” and that their sexual relationship was consensual.
Mr. Whibley alleged in his memoir released this week that Mr. Nori had pressured him into a non-consensual sexual relationship for about four years, starting when the Sum 41 singer was 18.
In a statement released Thursday through Peter Downard, a lawyer specializing in defamation with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Mr. Nori acknowledged the pair had a sexual relationship, but said Mr. Whibley’s allegation that it was non-consensual was “a lie.”
Mr. Whibley wrote that he tried to end the relationship numerous times, but Mr. Nori, who is also the co-founder of the Ontario band Treble Charger, routinely pushed back, sometimes with anger and accusations of homophobia.
“The accusation that I initiated the relationship is false,” Mr. Nori wrote. “I did not initiate it. Whibley initiated it, aggressively.” He said he did not pressure Mr. Whibley to continue the relationship either, including through accusations of homophobia.
In Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, Mr. Whibley also wrote that loved ones such as his wife, Ariana Whibley, and his ex-wife, the musician Avril Lavigne, helped him frame his experience as one that may have been grooming. Mr. Nori rejected this as well: “The accusation that I ‘groomed’ Whibley prior to the beginning of the relationship is false. I was surprised when Whibley initiated it.”
According to Mr. Whibley’s memoir, the pair first met at a Treble Charger concert when Mr. Whibley was 16 and Mr. Nori was in his mid-30s. Mr. Nori agreed to attend an early Sum 41 performance and became the band’s manager shortly after. Only with years of reflection did Mr. Whibley, now 44, come to recognize the strangeness of their initial friendship, he says.
“Thinking about that smile he gave me when I snuck backstage and met him feels much different now,” Mr. Whibley wrote. He said their sexual relationship began when Mr. Nori kissed him at a warehouse party when he was 18. Though Mr. Whibley initially viewed their kissing and sexual interactions as an “experiment” while he was on drugs, he would feel “extremely uncomfortable” about it when sober.
Mr. Whibley wrote that Mr. Nori’s pressure left him unable to end the sexual relationship until around the time Sum 41 ended its tour in support of its breakthrough album, All Killer No Filler, about four years later in 2002. The band dropped Mr. Nori as its manager after the tour behind the 2004 album Chuck.
The Sum 41 front man’s allegations against Mr. Nori first emerged late Monday when media organizations around the world began publishing coverage of Walking Disaster. Mr. Nori also told The Globe and Mail by phone that evening that the allegations were “false.”
“Ultimately the relationship simply faded out. Consensually,” Mr. Nori said in his statement Thursday. “Our business relationship continued. I am shocked that Whibley would make his false accusations publicly without giving me any opportunity to respond to them.”
Mr. Nori also posted Thursday on the website of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.’s Algoma Conservatory of Music, where he works as the recording studio manager and engineer, saying he would take a four-week leave of absence “to address the recent false allegations made against me.”
Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher, has declined to comment on the legal vetting process for Walking Disaster. Mr. Whibley did not immediately respond to comment requests Thursday through publicists who had promoted his book and Sum 41’s latest album.