Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley says he was sexually abused by ex-manager

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley is alleging in a new memoir that he was groomed and sexually abused by the band’s former manager Greig Nori, when he was a teenager and Nori was in his 30s.

The claims, first reported in a feature by the Los Angeles Times, appear in Whibley’s book Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell. In it, Whibley writes that Nori kissed him without consent and instigated sexual encounters during Sum 41’s formative years in Ajax, Ont., and into the early 2000s.

Whibley never told his bandmates about the alleged abuse, and only confided in then-partner Avril Lavigne and his current wife Ariana Cooper, who helped him understand the relationship between himself and Nori as abusive. After years of reflection and learning about the MeToo movement, Whibley told the L.A. Times he realized he had been groomed.

“As excited as I am to share this open and honest memoir of my life story, I’m equally just as terrified,” a post on the Sum 41 Instagram page reads.

A post shared by SUM 41 (@sum41)

Nori, a musician from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., denies the claims in the book as “false allegations.” He told the Globe and Mail that he has retained a defamation lawyer.

In Walking Disaster, Whibley describes meeting Nori for the first time when he snuck backstage at a Treble Charger concert when he was 16. At the time, Whibley was in high school trying to make his music dreams come true, and Nori, the frontman of Treble Charger, was his hero.

Whibley invited Nori to one of Sum 41’s upcoming performances, sparking a mentorship that would eventually grow into Nori managing the band.

One night when Whibley was 18, he and Nori were at a rave when the older musician asked Whibley to come to the bathroom to do ecstasy with him.