Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler accused of sexual misconduct

Win Butler, the frontman for Grammy-winning rock band Arcade Fire, has been accused of sexual misconduct by 4 people.

Three of the accusers are girls who say they’d been “devoted” followers of the band, and declare that the misconduct occurred between 2016 and 2020 after they’d been between the ages of 18 and 23 and Butler was between 36 and 39. A fourth accuser, who recognizes as “gender-fluid,” alleges that Butler sexually assaulted them two times in 2015, after they’d been 21 and he was 34, consistent with a report in Pitchfork.

Butler has been hitched to individual Arcade Fire part Régine Chassagne beginning around 2003.

Butler denied the sexual misconduct allegations, saying that he had had “consensual relationships exterior of my marriage,” consistent with statements he provided to Pitchfork.

The accusers, who had been acknowledged by pseudonyms throughout the article, talked about that Butler initially contacted them via social media sooner than meeting them in particular person, and later made requires for nude footage and intercourse. One of the women suggested Pitchfork that “Butler despatched her footage of his genitals in opposition to her wants.”

Another girl described that after first connecting with Butler on Instagram after an Arcade Fire reside efficiency in Montreal, the two engaged in “sexts and video calls” sooner than having intercourse. However, following a sexual encounter in her Vancouver mattress room sooner than a reside efficiency in October 2017, this particular person suggested Pitchfork that she tried suicide. “I felt extraordinarily low,” she talked about. “The toll of getting to keep up the whole thing secret, all the time pushing my desires aside in order to appease him, lack of boundaries, and the guilt of being the other girl was getting too laborious to ignore.”

Butler acknowledged that he was acutely aware of her suicide attempt nevertheless talked about she suggested him “it was unrelated to me, she was affected by psychological illness,” consistent with the report. “It was completely related to him,” she replied.

The gender-fluid explicit particular person, a 21-year-old paintings pupil on the time, talked about that they met Butler in January 2015 when the band was collaborating in in Montreal. The two exchanged contact information and met in February, the place they allege Butler touched them inappropriately with out their consent. Two days later he confirmed up at their apartment, the place “he pinned me up in opposition to the wall and was aggressively grabbing my physique and sticking his tongue down my throat,” they talked about. “It was an attempt to be captivating, and it was so not OK all through the specific circumstance.”

In his assertion, Butler referred to as his marriage at cases “unconventional,” and talked about that the relationships with the 4 accusers had been “short-lived,” together with that “every single one amongst these interactions has been mutual and always between consenting adults.”

“I’ve on no account touched a woman in opposition to her will, and any implication that I’ve is solely false. I vehemently deny any suggestion that I pressured myself on a woman or demanded sexual favors. That merely, and unequivocally, on no account occurred,” he talked about.

Butler despatched a second assertion to Pitchfork by way of which he acknowledged dealing with despair and consuming.

“I’ve drawn out battled with mental pleasantly being factors and the apparitions of experience growing up misuse. In my 30s, I started consuming as I dealt with the heaviest despair of my life after our family expert a miscarriage. None of that’s meant to excuse my conduct, nevertheless I do want to give some context and share what was occurring in my life spherical this time.”

Chassagne, for her half, is remaining by her significant other.

Butler, she talked about in an announcement to Pitchfork, is “my soulmate, my songwriting confederate, my husband, the daddy of my beautiful boy. He has been my confederate in life and in music for 20 years.” She went on to say that “I do know what’s in his coronary coronary heart, and I do know he has on no account, and would on no account, contact a woman with out her consent and I’m certain he on no account did. He has misplaced his method and he has found his method once more. I like him and love the life now we now have created collectively.”

Laura Eldeiry, the band’s publicist, declined to comment previous the statements Butler and Chassagne gave to Pitchfork.

Arcade Fire, now a five-piece band fronted by the husband-and-wife duo, earned early approval for its earnest and anthemic rock. After vaulting from the bustling Montreal indie scene throughout the mid-2000s, the band grew to change into important favorites and considered one of many largest rock acts of the ultimate 20 years. They gained the Grammy for album of the 12 months in 2011 for his or her third album, “The Suburbs,” and headlined the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in 2014. The group returned to Coachella this 12 months with a shock early-day set promoting its latest album, “We”.

As of Saturday, the band stays to be scheduled to start out a European enviornment tour on Tuesday, with two nights on the Kia Forum in Inglewood in November.