Sum 41 Frontman Deryck Whibley Accuses Former Manager and Mentor Greig Nori of Grooming and Abuse
Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley accuses former manager and mentor Greig Nori of abuse in his new memoir Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell.
As longtime followers of Sum are aware, Nori is a name often cited when digging into the Grammy-nominated band’s early career. He received production credits on the band’s Half Hour of Power EP in 2000, co-writing credits on the RIAA Platinum-certified All Killer No Filler album in 2001, production credits on follow-up Does This Look Infected in 2002, and, finally, production credits on Chuck in 2004. Shortly after that album, the band parted ways with Nori in a managerial capacity.
“As excited as I am to share this open and honest memoir of my life story tomorrow, I’m equally just as terrified,’ Whibley, whose new book takes its title from Sum’s 2007 single of the same name, said when sharing an excerpt and accompanying Los Angeles Times feature on Monday.
As noted in the Times piece, Whibley’s relationship with Nori, who also fronts Canadian band Treble Charger, allegedly began when Whibley was 16. At the time, Nori would have been 34. Whibley first met Nori by sneaking backstage at a Table Charger show, at which point he urged him to come check out a Sum show. Nori is alleged to have given Whibley his phone number, which is said to have led to hours-long conversations. Nori is further alleged to have provided both Whibley and original Sum drummer Steve Jocz with their first-ever alcoholic beverages.
In the book, Whibley writes of Nori allegedly inviting him and the band to multiple parties. As for the managerial aspect of their relationship, Whibley says this came about alongside one key “requirement,” namely that Nori would have “total control.” Whibley, who in 2014 was hospitalized due to complications from alcoholism but earlier this year celebrated a decade of sobriety, says he was 18 and under the influence at a rave when Nori urged him to join him in the restroom to do more drugs. While in the bathroom, Whibley alleges, Nori “passionately” kissed him, followed in subsequent weeks by him allegedly arguing that they should continue to explore a physical relationship because “most people are bisexual.”
Later, Whibley says he tried to bring this aspect of their relationship to a close, with Nori allegedly responding with anger, even going so far as to say Whibley “owed” him. When a friend of the two was made privy to what happened, Whibley adds in the book, the sexual nature of their relationship ended. This individual, notably, referred to what was transpiring as abuse. Whibley later told Avril Lavigne, to whom he was previously married from 2006 to 2010, about what happened between himself and Nori. Lavigne also told him he had been “sexually abused” by Nori, as did Whibley’s current wife, Ariana Cooper.
“He controlled everything in my life, but even the rest of the guys through the band,” Whibley, who also accused Nori of intervening on the band’s relationships with their parents, told Rachel Brodsky for the Times. “We were all under his wing. Me more, obviously. But he was such a controlling person.”
Walking Disaster is out now through Gallery Books. In the run-up to its release, Whibley has shared several YouTube videos focused on stories that didn’t make the book, including lighter fare focused on memorable moments involving everyone from Don Henley to the late Jerry Finn.
Tuesday, Whibley sat down with Allison Hagendorf for an extended interview during which he spoke more about his and Nori’s past. As Whibley explained, he “never” thought he had been the victim of alleged abuse until he told other people what happened. Telling Lavigne, who Whibley says is only the second person he confided in, marked “the first time I had ever heard the word associated with that situation.” Instead, for years, Whibley says he felt that what had happened “was my own fault.”
According to Whibley, now 44, he started to think more about the alleged abuse once he himself got to the age that Nori was when they first met. See more below.
Sum 41 will continue their latest, and final, tour later this month. After the Tour of the Setting Sum wraps with two shows at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto next January, the band will ride off into the proverbial sunset after eight studio albums, including their last effort as a group, Heaven :x: Hell.
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