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Mariah the Scientist was on her way to visit Young Thug at the Fulton County Jail on their third anniversary earlier this week when she claims she was denied a virtual visit with the incarcerated rapper.
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The R&B singer hopped on Instagram Live on Monday (Oct. 7) to vent to fans and voice her frustrations about not being able to virtually see her man (born Jeffery Williams) and the jail official wasting her time. She even brought a decorated “Happy Anniversary” sign and some Scotch tape to spice up the visit.
“It’s my three-year anniversary with Jeff. I done drove all the way to the motherf–king jail. The jail is 30 minutes from the city, first of all,” she began. I done drove all the way to the jail and stopped at Party City in between so I could tape up my little ‘Happy Anniversary’ sign in the back because there’s not much space. It’s through a screen, by the way.”
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Mariah added that she was “devastated” and “sad,” but will try again at another time.
“I done drove all the way to the motherf–king jail with my ‘Happy Anniversary’ sign and my Scotch tape and get inside for them to say, ‘The system is down.’ I’m devastated. I’m looking cute,” she continued. “I put this ponytail in my head. I done did all this s–t and I can’t see my man on my anniversary and I am sad, devastated. That is so crazy … I had to let you in on my trials and tribulations. It’s always some s–t, huh?”
Billboard has reached out to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
Young Thug remains behind bars as part of the ongoing YSL RICO trial. He’s been imprisoned since his arrest in May 2022, and is now part of the longest trial in Georgia’s history.
Mariah has held Thug down throughout his prison stint, and will make appearances at his court dates to show her support for the Atlanta rapper. In the past, they’ve connected for Mariah the Scientist tracks such as “Ride” and “Walked In.”
Billboard spoke to Mariah the Scientist earlier this year where she spoke about him still being supportive of her from behind bars and how they essentially talk “every day, all day.”
“I talk to him every day, all day,” she said in May. “When I have the opportunity to go to court and tune in physically, I am there. I feel like he appreciates, respects and encourages the fact that I have a strong work ethic and am actively working as much as I can. It’s good to do that, because if I didn’t I probably would be a little more down and out about it. He’s done a lot of the things I’m doing now, but he’s, like, living vicariously through me again.”
She continued: “We talk about it all the time. I feel like he pushes me to do more things. He’s very encouraging. He’s definitely supportive. I feel like sometimes they expect me to say he’s down and out. He’s not really that kind of guy. It’s very rare that he’s like that. Obviously, everybody doesn’t have perfect days every single day. For the most part, I have more down days than he does.”
When remembering his late sister SOPHIE, music producer and engineer Benny Long constantly comes back to one idea. “I think her brain was just ahead of the technology,” he tells Billboard, a tender smile crossing his face.
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It’s a recurring theme in conversations about SOPHIE, the visionary pop producer who died Jan. 30, 2021, at age 34, after falling from a balcony in Athens, Greece. During her life, SOPHIE persistently forged her own path, crafting industrial electronic soundscapes on early breakthroughs like 2015’s “BIPP” and “HARD” that laid the foundation for today’s growing hyperpop scene. After her death, artists, fans and industry professionals of all stripes celebrated her impact on both pop and avant-garde music.
“[Some of] the most influential pop stars in the world are using SOPHIE as a muse today,” explains Bibi Bourelly, who worked with her on the producer’s 2019 remix album. “They were asking SOPHIE, ‘What’s the sound? What’s the next thing?’ You can’t be a fire producer in the pop world today and not know all of SOPHIE’s sh-t.”
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Benny Long
Renata Raksha
Fans are getting a final glimpse into SOPHIE’s musical world — and producers and artists are receiving one final set of reference points from the pioneering performer — with SOPHIE, the producer’s self-titled final album, released in late September. Comprising 16 expansive new songs that oscillate between techno, pop, R&B, ambient and experimental sounds, the posthumous album aims to encompass all that SOPHIE managed to accomplish throughout her influential career — and continue to push the boundaries of pop music even further forward.
Long and SOPHIE started working on the project shortly after the release of her Grammy Award-winning debut album, 2018’s Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides. Inspired by audience reactions to unreleased tracks from her live shows, SOPHIE wanted to create something that “moved, almost like it was a voyage,” Long explains.
That meant winnowing down dozens of unreleased songs, which each had numerous remixes and rearrangements, making for what Long estimates were “900-plus versions” of tracks to choose from. It took the pair years to determine what the artist’s ideal version of her next project would look like — but after spending the COVID-19 pandemic honing the album, SOPHIE and Long locked in a tracklist at the end of 2020 that spanned the producer’s storied career, including “stuff from 2014 right up to the end of 2020,” he says.
When SOPHIE died, she left her brother with 16 tracks in various stages of completion, some nearly finished, others in need of major reworkings. But SOPHIE had spoken at length with Long about what work remained. “It wasn’t like we’d explicitly discussed in numbers that ‘this one is 73% done,’ ” he says. “But there was rarely a situation where I suggested something and she would say, ‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ or the other way around. We were always pretty aligned, and that gave me confidence to finish this album.”
It helped that both SOPHIE’s label, Future Classic, and her estate were eager for the album to be released. With their sister Emily, a music lawyer, helping creatively and from a business angle, all that stood in the way of the album’s release was Long finishing SOPHIE’s work. “I just had confidence from everyone — family, labels, collaborators, friends — which made the whole process that much easier,” he says.
Chris (left) and Logan of BC Kingdom
Rachel Murray/Getty Images
Los Angeles-based electronic R&B duo BC Kingdom — made up of the mononymous performers Logan and Chris — features on three of SOPHIE’s most prominent tracks: lead single “Reason Why” with Kim Petras and electro-R&B tracks “Live in My Truth” and “Why Lies,” both featuring pop singer LIZ. While they finished both “Reason Why” and “Why Lies” in sessions with SOPHIE in 2018 and 2019, “Live in Your Truth” still had missing lyrics when the producer died. “For a while I had writer’s block because I felt like I didn’t know what she wanted me to convey,” Logan explains. “I started asking myself questions like, ‘When’s the last time I saw her? When was the last time we had fun together?’ Those questions became the second verse.”
Bourelly remembers the late-night session at London’s RAK Studios in 2017 that produced her SOPHIE collaboration “Exhilarate,” the new album’s final single. “We were probably in that studio until 8 or 9 a.m.,” she recalls with a laugh. “We would just sit and shoot the sh-t together. We made so many songs that night because we were just trying everything out.”
Kim Petras
Cody Critcheloe
The producer’s sessions were famous for their nonconformity. BC Kingdom’s Chris recalls that it didn’t matter if she was in a proper session or at a house party (as the duo was when it first recorded “Live in Your Truth”); if SOPHIE felt the urge to create a song, she would. “Once she was behind that board, you knew what was about to happen,” he says. “It never felt like work, because she would just tell you, ‘Hop on the mic, have some fun,’ and then she would turn it into a hit.”
That spirit of unbridled fun and rampant experimentation encapsulates SOPHIE’s impact on the music industry at large. Along with influencing the sound of pop music today with her outlandish production and co-writes for artists like Madonna and Charli XCX — who paid tribute to her late collaborator on the brat song “So I” — Long says his sister’s legacy lives on in every pop artist dedicated to making the music fun again. “She never thought that pop and experimental music needed to be different things,” he says. “She thought you could do something wild in pop — to see that happening now is amazing, because that is what SOPHIE was all about.”
This article appears in the Oct. 5 issue of Billboard.
Metallica are the latest music act to pledge a major donation to help Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene. The band announced on Friday that their All Within My Hands Foundation has donated $50,000 each to the World Central Kitchen and Team Rubicon to aid their relief efforts as residents from Florida to Virginia clean up in the wake of the third-deadliest storm since 2000; the death toll at press time was 227, but experts expect it to rise as they continue recovery efforts.
“Over the past week, Hurricane Helene has left a 500-mile path of destruction throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee in its wake,” the band wrote on X. “It is an unmitigated tragedy, with over 215 lives lost and hundreds of people still unaccounted for. Historic water levels and widespread flooding across the Appalachians have left hundreds of roads inaccessible, hindering rescue efforts.”
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According to the band, World Central Kitchen’s efforts so far include bringing in food and water to isolated communities using helicopters and airboats, while partnering with 35 food trucks in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee and 16 restaurants in North Carolina and Tennessee, which has already provided tens of thousands of hot meals and sandwiches to families in need.
WCK has also deployed water tanks capable of delivering 100,000 gallons of potable water per day to communities in hard-hit Asheville, N.C., where residents have been without fresh water since the storm dumped an unprecedented amount of rain on the town where more than 100 people have been confirmed dead so far. At press time officials were still not sure when water service will be restored in the city, with some estimates suggesting it could be several weeks, or more before residents can turn their taps on again to cook, shower and flush toilets.
Disaster response NGO Team Rubicon is working with state and federal emergency response agencies to provide immediate disaster relief. “More than 140 Greyshirts (Team Rubicon volunteers) comprise five recon teams serving more than 35 communities across the affected area,” read a statement from the band. “These route clearance teams have already cleared more than 400 dump trucks worth of debris and continue to work diligently across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.”
Metallica join several other acts who’ve made major pledges to help, including Dolly Parton, who donated $1 million of her own money to help relief efforts, as well as another $1 million through her various business entities, including Dollywood and Dolly Parton’s Stampede to help the affected areas recover from the storm that led to massive destruction across several states, including washing out bridges and roads, leaving some communities inaccessible. “I look around and I think, ‘These are my mountains, these are my valleys, these are my rivers…these are my people, and this is my home…I just want you to know, I am totally with you, I am part of you, I love you,” Parton said in a statement.
In addition, fellow country singer Morgan Wallen has donated $500,000 to the Red Cross‘ hurricane relief efforts through his Morgan Wallen Foundation. “My family in East Tennessee are safe, but I know many are absolutely devastated there and in multiple states,” Wallen said in a statement. “All my prayers are geared toward those tonight. Those hills and hollers are very important to me in so many ways. It is going to take a monumental effort, and I am in contact with my team and others working on ways I can help.”
North Carolina natives Luke Combs and Eric Church have also posted on social media that they are looking for ways to contribute to the relief efforts. Miranda Lambert’s MuttNation Foundation has donated $100,000 to help animals impacted by the hurricane and Sturgill Simpson announced a one-off Oct. 21 benefit show at the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary, N.C. with proceeds earmarked for the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund.
Check out Metallica’s announcement and links for other organizations taking donations for Hurricane Helene relief below.
If you want to help, check out links to the organizations below (or click here for a longer list):
American Red Cross
GoFundMe
United Way
Mercy Chiefs
From a behind-the-scenes start lifting others’ careers to carving out his own colossal catalog, Bruno Mars has become one of the most consistent hitmakers of the last decade. After Mars spent years shuffling through the label system and building a roster of collaborators, he earned a key breakthrough as a co-writer of Flo Rida’s “Right […]
Karol G has officially received not one but two of her very own wax figures at the renowned Madame Tussauds wax museum.
The Colombian artist was present at the recent grand reveal in New York City, where she reacted to her two figures: one that captures the Colombian-inspired outfit and signature blue hair that she rocked during her 2022 Coachella performance; the other is one of her looks from the “TQG” music video with Shakira, where she had her striking red locks.
“Wow, how impressive!” Karol said in a press statement. “My first impression was I love my smile, and the color of my eyes […] I hope when my fans meet the figures that it’s a manifestation for them that one day they will meet me.”
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Her Coachella wax figure will remain at the Madame Tussauds in Times Square, whereas her “TQG” wax figure will be relocated to the Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas at the end of October.
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“Karol G is one of our generation’s greatest living Latina performers,” added Eliza Rose, marketing manager at Madame Tussauds New York. “Her figure is a beautiful addition to our museums, and a testament to her talent, influence and the love her fans have for her.”
The “Bichota” singer—who’s a 17-time finalist at the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards and whose “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” has spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart—joins Maluma, Anitta, Selena, Bad Bunny, Shakira and other Latin acts with their own wax figures.
Billboard Latin Music Week is returning to Miami Beach on Oct. 14-18, with confirmed superstars including Feid, Gloria Estefan, Pepe Aguilar, Alejandro Sanz, Thalía, Maria Becerra, Peso Pluma and Young Miko, among many others. For tickets and more details, visit Billboardlatinmusicweek.com.
Karol G Strikes A Pose With Her Two New Wax Figures at Madame Tussauds on October 04, 2024 in New York City.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Madame Tussauds
As areas of the United States spanning North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia have been devastated by Hurricane Helene, communities have pulled together to provide essentials to those in need and rebuild areas damaged or destroyed by the storm.
The category 4 hurricane came ashore late on Sept. 26 in Florida’s Big Bend region, with a maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. As the hurricane moved north, it destroyed homes, demolished buildings, crumbled bridges and wiped away roads. In some places, the storm washed away entire communities, and has cut off cellphone services and electricity for millions of residents. So far, the death toll from Hurricane Helene has grown to more than 200 people.
In response to the hurricane’s devastation, several artists in the country, bluegrass and Americana communities have stepped up to help, including many with hometown roots in the states impacted, such as Tennessee natives Dolly Parton and Morgan Wallen, North Carolina natives Eric Church and Luke Combs and Georgia native Jason Aldean.
Church recently released his first solo song in over three years with “Darkest Hour,” dedicated to those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Church is also turning over all of his music publishing royalties from the song to help those in his home state who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene.
“From Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, Upstate South Carolina, parts of Georgia and even Florida which took a direct hit, there are so many places that were impacted. Specifically in the area that I’m from, the mountains of Western North Carolina were devastated. There are places that are just biblically gone. These are our family members, they’re our friends, they’re our neighbors – and they’re in dire need of help,” Church previously said in a statement about the release of “Darkest Hour.” “And I’ve been in the studio for a while, trying some different things and exploring creativity. I had this song that I’d written, and the line that struck me in light of the recent devastation was ‘I’ll come running,’ because there are a lot of people out there right now who are in their darkest hour and they need people to come running. We were going to wait to release music until next year, but it just didn’t feel right to wait with this song. Sometimes you give songs their moment and sometimes they find their own moment.”
Many artists have made sizable donations to various organizations, while many have also spotlighted organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Boone, North Carolina-based charity Samaritan’s Purse.
Below, we highlight some of the artists in the country, Americana and bluegrass communities who are aiding Hurricane Helene relief in various ways.
Jason Aldean
From superstar Q&As to panels that help you understand the business of music, there’s something for everyone at the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week, with programming that covers every aspect of the industry. This year, a handful of business-focused panels will feature a mix of executives and artists who will take centerstage to break down […]
Across genres, a new crop of producers has broken out in recent years (some as recently as this past one). Some have quickly established themselves as go-to hit-makers; others are talented newbies who’ve just gotten their first tastes of success. But regardless of experience level, these producers — selected based on their histories on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard’s Hot 100 producers chart, along with placements on other charts — are helping to define music’s future.
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Young but already established hit-makers, their big Hot 100 breakthroughs occurred within the past five years
Rob Bisel
The primary producer on SZA’s SOS, he’s charted 13 songs on the Hot 100 (12 by SZA, including “Kill Bill”); he’s also engineered big hits by Doja Cat, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator.
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Nik D
Debuted on the Hot 100 in 2019 with Travis Scott’s No. 1 “Highest in the Room”; returned with hits by Drake and Metro Boomin before co-producing Jack Harlow’s No. 1 “Lovin on Me.”
Jacob Durrett
Produced on seven Hot 100-charting songs — six of them by Morgan Wallen, including Durrett’s debut entry, the top 10 hit “Wasted on You” — all since 2021.
Omer Fedi
Has placed 23 songs on the Hot 100 since his chart debut in June 2020, including four No. 1s: 24kGoldn’s “Mood,” Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” and Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy.”
The Kid LAROI (left) and Omer Fedi
Presley Ann/Getty Images
Charlie Handsome
Of the 54 Hot 100-charting songs he’s produced or co-produced, 23 are by Post Malone and eight are by Morgan Wallen; seven reached the top 10; and two (Jack Harlow’s “First Class” and Post and Wallen’s “I Had Some Help”) reached No. 1.
Jasper Harris
Since 2019, has charted 17 songs on the Hot 100 as a producer, including his first two top 10s in 2022: Jack Harlow’s “First Class” and Post Malone and Doja Cat’s “I Like You (A Happier Song).”
Jasper Harris (left) and Lil Nas X
David Dickenson
Blake Slatkin
Produced on 12 Hot 100-charting songs since 2020, including four No. 1s: “Mood,” “Stay,” “Unholy” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time.” 2024 credits include Charli XCX, Omar Apollo and Wallows.
Leon Thomas III
Produced on SZA’s “Snooze,” plus Hot 100-charting hits by Drake, Jack Harlow and Ye/Ty Dolla $ign; he’s also worked on songs with Post Malone, Ariana Grande and Giveon.
Ty Dolla $ign (left) and Leon Thomas III attend Affinity Nightlife presents “Music Is Love | Love is Music” Grammys after party at Academy LA on Feb. 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
After some time in the production world, they recently broke through to the charts’ top tier
Evan Blair
Cracked the Hot 100 with Nessa Barrett’s “I Hope Ur Miserable Until Ur Dead” (2021), then moved up the chart with Dove Cameron’s No. 16-peaking “Boyfriend” (2022); earlier this year, reached No. 2 with Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things.”
BNYX
Charted 13 songs on the Hot 100 as a producer, all since 2022. Four hit the top 10: Drake’s “Search & Rescue” and “IDGAF” and Travis Scott’s “K-Pop” and “Meltdown”; has also worked with Lil Tecca, Lil Uzi Vert and Yeat.
Yeat and BYNX
Jason Renaud
A.G. Cook
His first Hot 100 production credit was on Beyoncé’s “All Up in Your Mind” in 2022; this year, he returned with four Charli XCX tracks — “360,” “Girl, so confusing,” “Apple” and “Talk talk,” with Troye Sivan — which all hit the top 10 of Hot Dance/Electronic Songs.
Ernesto “Neto” Fernandez
One of the biggest current regional Mexican producers. First charted on the Hot 100 in February 2023 with Peso Pluma & Natanael Cano’s “PRC” and followed that with the No. 4-peaking “Ella Baila Sola” (the highest-charting regional Mexican song ever). He’s charted 19 total songs by Peso Pluma on the Hot 100, plus three by Xavi and one by Junior H.
Teo Halm
Has charted three songs on the Hot 100 as producer, all in 2022: Omar Apollo’s “Evergreen” and SZA’s “Notice Me” and “Open Arms.” Co-wrote Drake’s “Fair Trade,” which reached No. 3.
Sean Momberger
Produced on two recent No. 1s — Jack Harlow’s “Lovin on Me” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” — after making his first Hot 100 appearance in 2018 with Chris Brown’s “Tempo” and returning with Gunna and Future’s “Too Easy” (2021) and Lil Baby’s “Everything” (2022).
Sean Momberger at the Spotify Best New Artist Party held at Paramount Studios on February 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Gilbert Flores for Billboard
Nova Wav
The veteran female duo produced on Beyoncé’s “Cuff It,” which spent 35 weeks on the Hot 100 (reaching No. 6) and became her longest-charting song as lead artist, as well as on Bey’s “Jolene” from Cowboy Carter, which reached No. 7 earlier this year.
La Paciencia
The close Bad Bunny collaborator has charted 21 songs on the Hot 100 since June 2023, all by the Puerto Rican superstar, including two top 10s: “Where She Goes” (No. 8) and “Monaco” (No. 5).
RIOTUSA
Ice Spice’s right-hand producer charted six songs with her on the Hot 100, all since February 2023, including her two top 10s, “Princess Diana” (No. 4) and “Barbie World” (No. 7).
Austin Shawn
Produced all seven of Bailey Zimmerman’s Hot 100 entries, including the No. 10-peaking “Rock and a Hard Place” in 2023.
Gabe Simon
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
Gabe Simon
First charted on the Hot 100 in 2022 with Jessie Murph’s “Pray” (No. 95) — then followed up with seven Noah Kahan hits, including “Stick Season” (No. 9), “Dial Drunk” and “Northern Attitude.” (The latter two made the top 40 and also topped the Triple A radio chart.) Earned two more Hot 100 top 40 entries this year with Koe Wetzel’s “Sweet Dreams” and Wetzel and Jessie Murph’s “High Road.”
They’re brand-new to the charts, but their achievements already make them worth watching
Grant Boutin
Charted for the first time in September 2023 with Tate McRae’s “Greedy” (which went to No. 3 on the Hot 100 and spent eight weeks atop Pop Airplay) and then with her “Run for the Hills.” He’s also worked with Meghan Trainor and Tomorrow X Together.
Sean Cook
Paul Russell’s inescapable “Lil Boo Thang” (No. 14 on the Hot 100) marked his first producer credit on the charts; he made a strong follow-up co-producing Shaboozey’s Hot 100 No. 1 “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
Sean Cook
Michael Tran/AFP/Getty Images
Dave Hamelin
Charted for the first time on the Hot 100 this year with five songs from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter: “16 Carriages,” “Just for Fun,” “II Hands II Heaven,” “Tyrant” and “Amen.”
Hoskins
Charted for the first time on the Hot 100 with Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s No. 1 “I Had Some Help” and co-produced Post’s F-1 Trillion single “Guy for That” with Luke Combs (a No. 17 peak); previously had only produced one other charting song, Khalid’s “Present” (which spent a week on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs in 2021).
Gerreaux Katana
Broke onto the charts and reached No. 15 with ascendant rapper Flo Milli’s “Never Lose Me.”
Florian Ongonga
Charted for the first time in July 2023 with three Gunna songs, including the No. 4-peaking “fukumean”; also produced Gunna’s “Prada Dem” featuring Offset, which reached No. 15 on Hot Rap Songs.
Tommy Richman’s Crew (Kavi, Mannyvelli, Jonah Roy, Sparkheem and Max Vossberg)
The breakout star’s creative inner circle all charted for the first time with their work on his Hot 100 topper “Million Dollar Baby;” Kavi, Roy and Vossberg followed that up with “Devil Is a Lie,” which peaked at No. 32.
Frank Rio
The go-to producer for Ivan Cornejo, he has produced on 16 Hot Latin Songs entries (including three top 10s) by the young singer-songwriter.
Frank Rio
NEON16
Jack Rochon
Three songs from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter became his Hot 100 entrée: “II Hands II Heaven,” “Protector” and “Jolene.” He’s also worked with 6LACK, H.E.R. and Kehlani.
Nevin Sastry and Shaboozey
Courtesy of Nevin Sastry
Nevin Sastry
Charted for the first time co-producing Shaboozey’s Hot 100 No. 1 “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”; also worked on the artist’s “My Fault” and “Drink Don’t Need No Mix,” which reached Hot Country Songs’ top 50.
This article appears in the Oct. 5 issue of Billboard.
Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight over to Taylor Swift‘s box suite to celebrate after lasting yet another week undefeated in the NFL. Moments after Kansas City won 26-13 against the New Orleans Saints Monday (Oct. 7), Travis Kelce joined his superstar girlfriend in her viewing area at Arrowhead Stadium for a […]
In his new memoir, Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 accuses his band’s former manager Greig Nori of sexual abuse and grooming.
As revealed Tuesday (Oct. 8) in the newly published pages of Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, the now-44-year-old rocker was 16 when Nori — then 34 — allegedly began abusing the musician. According to snippets of the book shared by the Los Angeles Times, the now-61-year-old Treble Charger band member was a personal hero of Whibley’s before he became a songwriting mentor and manager to Sum 41, after which the alleged sexual misconduct began, with Whibley claiming that when he was 18, Nori cornered him in a bathroom stall at a rave and “passionately” kissing him.
Over time, Whibley alleges in his book that Nori manipulated him by calling the younger musician homophobic if he didn’t reciprocate. Whibley also writes that Nori said he “owed” his then-manager for his career, and alleged that Nori pressured him into continuing the relationship because “so many of my rock star idols were queer.”
“Greig had one requirement to be our manager — he wanted total control,” Whibley writes in Walking Disaster, according to the LA 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.”
Billboard was not able to reach Nori at press time. Multiple publications, however, have reported that Nori did not reply to requests for comment.
“I always thought that I would take this to my grave and I wouldn’t say anything,” Whibley told Rolling Stone. “As I started getting into the book, I felt like, ‘How could I not be honest?’”
Whibley still hasn’t told his bandmates about the alleged abuse, according to the LA Times. In March, Sum 41 dropped its eighth and final album, Heaven :x: Hell, after which the band spent much of this year on a farewell tour. In January, the group is slated to play Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, marking its final show ever.
Nori hasn’t been in the picture since 2005, when Sum 41 fired him at Whibley’s urging, according to the LA Times. Without disclosing anything about his personal experiences with Nori at the time, the frontman eventually persuaded his bandmates to part ways with their manager by citing Nori’s alleged professional failings, from fumbling opportunities for the group to being unreachable and showing up to important events under the influence of ecstasy.
Whibley went on to marry Avril Lavigne, who was one of the first to tell him, “That’s abuse! [Nori] sexually abused you,” the “Landmines” singer writes in Walking Disaster, according to the LA Times.
After the couple divorced in 2009, Whibley wed Ariana Cooper, to whom he’s been married for 10 years. Cooper had the same reaction as the “Complicated” musician, Whibley says.
Even so, it wasn’t until Whibley turned 35 — one year older than Nori was when he allegedly began abusing Whibley — that the Sum 41 guitarist finally started to understand what he’d been through. “It all became so clear,” Whibley told L.A. 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.”
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 for confidential help 24/7.
