Iconic 00s rocker accuses band’s ex-manager of sexually abusing him from the age of 16 --[Reported by Umva mag]

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley – behind hits such as Fat Lip and In Too Deep – has claimed the band’s ex-manager sexually assaulted him in his candid new memoir.

The 44-year-old Canadian rocker opened up about the alleged sexual abuse he endured at the hands of former manager, and mentor, Greig Nori, in hisbiography, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell.

The singer, who is currently on a farewell world tour with his band, formed Sum 41 in 1996.

Soon after the Treble Charger frontman Nori became the band’s first manager after he ‘taught them to become better writers and recorded demo after demo for them,’ according to Nori’s official website.

The website describes him as ‘the driving force behind the band’ but the picture Whibley has painted tells an entirely different story of alleged grooming, sexual and verbal abuse which reportedly began when he was 16 and Nori was 34.

According to an excerpt from the novel shared with the Los Angeles Times, Nori established ‘total control’ over the group in the early days and said he was ‘the only person [they] could trust’.

One alleged encounter shared in the book saw an 18-year-old Whibley invited into a bathroom stall by Nori to have a drop of ecstasy. Whibley claimed Nori then ‘passionately’ kissed him and he walked away ‘stunned’.

Whibley explained that Nori reportedly told him that he had never felt same-sex attraction before but ‘[Whibley] brought it out in him because what [they] had was so special’.

As Nori allegedly tried to convince him their relationship was worth exploring because so many of Whibley’s ‘rock idols were queer’.

He then recalled Nori reportedly calling him homophobic, mentioning that he ‘owed’ him and trying to turn the tables on who started the relationship.

The pair eventually grew more distance as Sum 41 started touring but it was only after Whibley started dating Avril Lavigne (the couple were married between 2006 and 2010) that he confided in someone for the first time, and Lavigne told him he was ‘sexually assaulted’.

Although the sexual advances reportedly came to an end after a mutual friend told them both it was ‘abuse’, the psychological and verbal abuse allegedly ramped up with tactics including pitting the band against one another.

After encouragement from Whibley, Nori was eventually ousted from the band in 2005 after they released their third studio album, Chuck.

Whibley has not informed any of the former or current band members about the abuse allegations nor has he contacted Nori, even though he felt he should at times.

‘You know, I don’t owe him anything,’ he told the LA Times.

‘I’ve had an inner battle, like, ‘Why do I want to tell him? Because I feel like I’m supposed to? Because he still has this thing over me?’

‘He controlled everything in my life, but even the rest of the guys through the band. We were all under his wing. Me more, obviously. But he was such a controlling person.’

‘I always thought that I would take this to my grave and I wouldn’t say anything,’ Whibley added to Rolling Stone.

‘As I started getting into the book, I felt like, “How could I not be honest?”‘

He added that it was ‘so intertwined’ with his world for seven years and he felt he would be ‘lying’ if he didn’t address it.

He also shared that the reason he had avoided confronting it for so long was because he didn’t want to have ‘victim issues’.

He is still in the ‘early stages’ of processing what he views as ‘very manipulative’ behaviour and that the extent of if ‘only dawned on him’ when he himself his his mid-30s.

‘He was a hero so to see that power dynamic, you see how you can manipulate a 16-year-old kid,’ he concluded, saying that ‘readers’ can see it as ‘abuse but he describes it as ‘some s***y thing I went through.’

As for the band, their farewell world tour comes to an end in Toronto, Ontario on Janaury 30, 2025.

They announced the news of their split after 27 years in May 2023 in a heartfelt social media post.

‘Being in Sum 41 since 1996 brought us some of the best moments of our lives.

‘We are forever grateful to our fans both old and new, who have supported us in every way. It is hard to articulate the love and respect we have for all of you and we wanted you to hear this from us first,’ they wrote before breaking the bad news of their final tour and album.

In a recent interview Whibley also shared he would love to reconnect with the former frontman Jon Marshall who was in the band between 1996 and 1997 before leaving with no contact.

‘He was my best friend, then he left the group never to be seen again,’ Deryck recalled to the Daily Star. ‘Nothing at all. I would like a “goodbye!”‘

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Greig Nori for comment.

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