"Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell," a memoir written by Sum 41's Deryck Whibley, reveals a painful secret that the frontman says he's kept hidden from his bandmates for years, alleging sexual abuse at the hands of the band's former manager at the height of his fame as a young man.
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times pegged to the October 8 release of the book, Whibley says “I don’t look at my life as anything worth reading . . . I’m just a guy who wrote some songs and had some success and went through a couple things. But then I thought, the idea of wrapping Sum 41 up [with a book] is a good way to move on from my past. I’m starting a new chapter."
The musician goes on to say that the manager, Greig Nori, had been a "hometown hero" to him at the time as he was a fellow musician in the band Treble Charger. Feeling lucky to have caught his attention, Whibley reveals that things took a dark turn when Nori began foisting drinks upon him, distancing him from family and, eventually, forcing himself on him in a sexual nature.
In one passage of the memoir, Whibley writes of a time in which Nori grabbed his face and “passionately” kissed him while drunk and high on ecstasy at a rave when the singer was only 18.
"He controlled everything in my life, but even the rest of the guys through the band," he furthers. "We were all under his wing. Me more, obviously. But he was such a controlling person.”
The band eventually fired Nori and Whibley kept the manager's predatory actions hidden, until now. The singer says the start of the Me Too movement helped him better understand the gravity of what happened to him, saying, "It all started to make sense.”
