Nori has yet to respond to the allegations and Postmedia has reached out for comment
In his new memoir, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley alleges that his former manager pressured him to be in a sexual relationship.
But the relationship took a turn he says when Nori, who produced Sum 41’s Does This Look Infected? and Chuck, passionately” kissed Whibley at a rave.
After the incident, Whibley writes in his book, Nori said they should pursue a relationship because “so many of my rock star idols were queer. … Most people are bisexual; they’re just too afraid to admit it.
“He was so relentless and convincing that after a while, I started to believe that maybe he was right,” Whibley writes.
Whibley told the Times that he hasn’t informed Nori of the allegations contained in the book.
“You know, I don’t owe him anything,” he says. “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.”
When Whibley told his ex-wife Avril Lavigne, who he was married to from 2006 to 2009, she said that Nori’s alleged behaviour was abusive.
“That’s abuse! He sexually abused you,” he writes that she said. Whibley said that his current wife, Ariana Cooper, had the same reaction.
“He told me this was all my fault to begin with because I should never have said yes to it in the first place. I started this and now he was in it with me so I couldn’t just stop,” Whibley writes.
Their sexual encounters ended, Whibley writes, when a mutual friend, who also categorized their relationship as abusive, discovered what was happening.
Whibley says it wasn’t until he was in his mid-30s, long after they had fired Nori as their manager, that he realized that the power dynamic that existed between the two was wrong.
“It all became so clear,” Whibley tells the 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.”
Nori has yet to respond to the allegations and Postmedia has reached out for comment.
Sum 41 are in the midst of their final tour in support of this year’s Heaven :x: Hell.
The Canadian punk rockers will wrap up their career with a two-night stand at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 28 and 30.
“Our last show is on Jan. 30, and by Feb. 1, I’ll be like, ‘OK f***, I got no job. What am I gonna do? What is exciting me today?’” Whibley says.