Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 performs during a concert in Quebec City on July 15, 2022.Amy Harris/The Associated Press
Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley and the band’s ex-manager Greig Nori have threatened to take a months-long dispute about their relationship to Ontario court after the pop-punk vocalist alleged in his memoir that Mr. Nori had sexually abused him.
Mr. Whibley’s book, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, was published by Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books last October. In it, he alleges that Mr. Nori pressured him into a non-consensual sexual relationship in the band’s early days, which he kept hidden even from his bandmates.
Mr. Nori immediately denied the allegations when they began surfacing in media coverage of the book prior to its publication. He further denied the allegations after retaining a defamation lawyer, calling them “a lie.” Mr. Whibley then posted a social-media video encouraging Mr. Nori to take his counter-allegations to court.
Mr. Nori began that process Jan. 3 by filing a notice of action with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, saying he intended to seek more than $6-million in damages for “libel, breach of confidence, intrusion upon seclusion, wrongful disclosure of private facts, and placing the plaintiff in a false light” from both Mr. Whibley and his publisher Simon & Schuster over the allegations in Walking Disaster.
Through representatives, Mr. Whibley and Simon & Schuster declined to comment Thursday. Mr. Nori did not immediately respond to a comment request through his lawyer.
At the time of Walking Disaster’s publication, Simon & Schuster declined to outline its legal vetting process for the book. Mr. Nori told The Globe and Mail the night before Walking Disaster’s publication he was not aware of the allegations until media coverage of the book began that day.
Mr. Whibley responded on Jan. 7, filing a notice of action that said he would seek $3-million in damages from Mr. Nori for accusing him of “being a liar,” writing in his own filing that Mr. Nori’s denial of Mr. Whibley’s accusations in Walking Disaster “were false and/or inaccurate and would tend to lower the reputation of the plaintiff.”
Both parties filed notices of action, which gives them 30 days to make their arguments in official statements of claim with the Ontario court, which can be followed by statements of defence. No allegations have been tested in court.
Mr. Nori is based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Local news outlet SooToday first reported on the court filings.
Sum 41 was founded in Ajax, Ont., near Toronto in 1996, and numerous members still live in the area. The Sum 41 vocalist wrote that the relationship began in the late 1990s, after Mr. Nori, the co-frontman of the band Treble Charger, began to manage the band. Mr. Whibley alleges that pressure from Mr. Nori left him unable to end the sexual relationship until around the time Sum 41 ended its tour in support of its breakthrough album, All Killer No Filler, about four years later in 2002.
Mr. Nori is a key player in nearly half of Mr. Whibley’s book. According to Mr. Whibley, the pair first met at a Treble Charger concert when Mr. Whibley was 16 and Mr. Nori, who was then in his mid-30s, agreed to attend an early Sum 41 performance in the mid 1990s. Shortly after, he became the band’s manager. Only with years of reflection did Mr. Whibley, 44, come to recognize the strangeness of their initial friendship, he writes in Walking Disaster.
“Thinking about that smile he gave me when I snuck backstage and met him feels much different now,” Mr. Whibley writes.
He alleges Mr. Nori first kissed him shortly after he turned 18, in a bathroom at a warehouse party, when the Sum 41 singer was high on ecstasy. Though he initially viewed their kissing and sexual interactions as an “experiment” while he was on drugs, he writes in the book, he would feel “extremely uncomfortable” about it when sober.
In a statement through a lawyer the week of the book’s release, Mr. Nori alleged that he and Mr. Whibley’s relationship was consensual and initiated by Mr. Whibley. “The accusation that I pressured Whibley to continue the relationship is false,” he wrote.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify the nature of the court filing.