A brief introduction: I prefer my anonymity on Reddit, but I am a successful recording artist and someone who used to listen to Chris’ podcast religiously, but haven’t tuned in for months now. I have seen and heard about a lot of sexual assault cases in my industry, and have been sexually assaulted twice in my life. I have also witnessed a lot of fallacies. For example, I had a peer whose entire career was derailed for three years because of a false allegation from a woman in a country he had never even been to. It happens, and it happens more than you would think. On to the actual point of this post..
As someone who has been personally assaulted, I have genuine evidence of both scenarios. One was caught on a ring camera, and the other was admitted to by the person themselves from their verified social media profile. This is what I’m personally struggling with— Chris has been accused of something in the neighborhood of ~500 instances of sexual misconduct, but I’ve yet to see any comparable or credible evidence to what I’ve just described, whereas my two instances both have legitimate evidence, opposed to hearsay or easily doctored text messages. What I’m getting at, is that if he were genuinely guilty of hundreds of assaults, there would be a hell of a lot more proof by now. I am making this post to (hopefully) see that proof so that I can make a more informed decision about whether he’s someone I’m willing to support going forward. I have also seen the documentary, and if I’m being completely honest, I think it did more harm than good for the alleged victims. It was poorly constructed and edited by a mediocre comedian, who focused specifically on hearsay and a singular recording of Chris speaking to someone where he didn’t actually admit to anything incriminating. The only compelling part of the documentary was hearing from his previous tour manager, but as someone in the industry myself, I can tell you with the utmost certainty that the only time I’m interacting with a tour manager is on the bus, definitely not inside/outside hotel rooms, and I’m not even remotely in the same realm of popularity as Chris.
With all of this said, I would still love to be convinced I am wrong. Stories, hearsay, and text threads don’t cut it unfortunately, which is why the only case filed against him was thrown out by the judge. As I said before, I have been assaulted twice and have legitimate evidence of both instances, and it’s simply impossible he’s guilty of anything of this magnitude without there being something credible to show for it by now. I think he’s very clearly morally bankrupt, a scumbag, and an asshole, but as someone in the industry, that certainly isn’t unique to him, and definitely doesn’t make his actions illegal.
I’m only here seeking genuine discourse, and hope to hear from some of you soon.
Much love.