Phoebe Bridgers, one of seven women who came forward with allegations of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct against Ryan Adams in a New York Times report, has issued a new statement addressing the situation.
“It’s been a weird week and I wanted to say a couple things. Thank you from my whole fucking heart to my friends, my bands, my mom,” Bridgers wrote in the caption of a photo of her and her Boygenius band mates. “They all supported and validated me. They told me that what had happened was fucked up and wrong, and that I was right to feel weird about it. I couldn’t have done this without them.”
“Ryan had a network too,” Bridgers continued. “Friends, bands, people he worked with. None of them held him accountable. They told him, by what they said or by what they didn’t, that what he was doing was okay. They validated him. He couldn’t have done this without them.”
As Bridgers discussed in the Times report, after she and Adams embarked on what she called a “mentorship” when she was 20, the two began a romantic relationship. However, Adams would later demand that Bridgers “leave social situations to have phone sex, and threatening suicide if she didn’t reply immediately.”
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Bridgers concluded, “Guys, if your friend is acting fucked up, call them out. If they’re actually your friend, they’ll listen. That’s the way this all gets better.”
Mandy Moore, Adams’ ex-wife who also spoke to the Times about how Adams was “psychologically abusive” during their marriage, tweeted in support of Bridgers’ new statement:
Facts. Thank you, @phoebe_bridgers. ❤️ you. https://t.co/lFJhSzwMc9
— Mandy Moore (@TheMandyMoore) February 17, 2019
In the aftermath of the Times report, the FBI revealed they would investigate Adams’ alleged sexts with an underage girl. Adams’ April-bound new album Big Colors has been indefinitely shelved, and two instrument makers have paused sponsorship deals with the singer-songwriter.