Sigur Ros drummer quits the band amid Instagram rape claim from Los Angeles-based artist
Meagan Boyd claims Orri Pall Dyrason raped her twice in a night spent with him in Los Angeles, explaining that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh inspired her to go public
The drummer for Icelandic band Sigur Ros resigned from the band on Monday amid allegations of sexual assault.
Los Angeles-based artist Meagan Boyd reported the alleged assault last week on Instagram. Her account has been set to private, and some of the posts were reportedly deleted, but several outlets printed the text from her posts.
‘MeToo’ incident has made me stronger, says Hong Kong hurdler Vera Lui
Boyd said the incident occurred after she met drummer Orri Pall Dyrason in a Los Angeles club in 2013 and the two fell asleep in a bed. She wrote that Dyrason then “raped me two times over the course of a night spent with him during his stay in Los Angeles recording an album”, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
“I was drunk, and I had met him at a club (I had a brief period in which I was a dancer at a club called ‘the body shop’), I also engaged in a kiss with him before falling asleep in the same bed, after that I completely knocked out,” Boyd wrote. “I woke up with the feeling of being penetrated without my consent during a deep slumber … It happened twice that night, and I wondered [to] myself why I didn’t leave after the first time – but I was drunk, dead tired, in shock, and this was right before I ever heard of anything like Uber/Lyft.”
She said that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh inspired her to go public with these claims.
Sigur Ros have performed in Hong Kong several times, most recently at the Clockenflap festival in 2016.
Today is the first time I truly wanted to cry as I’ve pushed down and repressed my trauma for years. This is not over. This is only the beginning
The band, which is known for their experimental textures and long songs that have appeared in movies such as Vanilla Sky, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and 127 Hours, said it accepted Dyrason’s resignation.
“In the wake of the extremely serious and personal allegations made against him in recent days we have today accepted the resignation of our bandmate Orri Pall Dyrason to allow him to deal with this privately,” said founding members Jonsi and Georg Holm in a statement on Monday on the band’s Facebook page.
Dyrason himself wrote a statement on Facebook, thanking his “friends and relatives for the support you have shown”.
“It is good for me [to] feel for your trust, despite the serious public allegations against me,” he wrote. “This matter has undeniably taken its toll on me for the past few days. Justifiably, some will say, and I do not intend to argue with those people.”
Dyrason said that “out of respect for those actually suffering from sexual violence, I will not take that fight public”.
Finally, he cautioned his fans to remain calm.
“I sincerely ask the same people to steer their anger into the right path and abstain from dragging my family, and especially my wife, into this matter,” he wrote. “At the same time, I ask people to stay calm and not to be divided into two battling armies, these are not court proceedings, just Meagan’s words against mine, on the internet. Loud and provocative words are in nobody’s favour – neither to me or her.”
China’s #MeToo revival: famed activists, TV host and writer named
Boyd shared another Instagram post, in which she said she “will not back down or be silenced or gaslighted” and that she is hoping to speak with a lawyer.
“Today is the first time I truly wanted to cry as I’ve pushed down and repressed my trauma for years,” she wrote. “This is not over. This is only the beginning.”
