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Feist leaves Arcade Fire tour after Win Butler sexual misconduct allegations.
Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist, known as Feist, has announced she will be leaving to tour with Arcade Fire following allegations of sexual misconduct against the band's frontman, Win Butler.
A Pitchfork assessment dispersed last week claimed that the 42-year-old performer guitarist of the Canadian indie rock band took advantage of age differences and fandom with four people; three women, ages 18 to 23 by then, guaranteed that Butler sent spam between the extensive stretches of 2015 and 2020.
A fourth person, who is gender fluid, alleged that Butler sexually assaulted them twice in 2015, when they were 21 and he was 34. Pitchfork viewed screenshots of text and Instagram messages between Butler and the four pseudonymous subjects, and interviewed friends and family members who recalled being made aware of the alleged incidents.
Butler denied the claims and said the relationships were consensual, adding in a statement: "It is deeply revisionist and, frankly, just wrong, for anyone to suggest otherwise."
"In a Dublin pub after rehearsing with my band I read the same headline as you," Feist wrote in a lengthy statement posted on his social media accounts. "We didn't have time to prepare for what was coming, much less the opportunity to decide not to fly across the ocean into the belly of this situation."
“This has been incredibly difficult for me and I can only imagine how much more difficult it has been for the people who have come forward. More than anything, I wish for the healing of those involved."
He added that the Pitchfork article "started a conversation that it's bigger than me, it's bigger than my songs, and it's certainly bigger than any rock and roll tour... Staying on tour would symbolize that I was standing up for or ignoring the harm caused by Win Butler. and leaving would imply that I was the judge and the jury.”
The 46-year-old singer said she was “never here to represent or with Arcade Fire; I was here to stand on a stage, a place where I have come to feel like I belong and have earned as my own.
“There is no single path to healing when you have endured any version of the above, nor is there a single path to rehabilitating perpetrators,” he said. “It can be a lonely road to make sense of mistreatment. I can't solve that by quitting, and I can't solve it by staying. But I can't continue.
Win Butler sexual misconduct claims will harm Arcade Fire more than they would different groups
Following the allegations, radio broadcasts in Canada and the US started eliminating the band's tunes from playlists. Analysts via social media encouraged fans to blacklist forthcoming shows in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and somewhere else, with many amazed the visit went for it. Remark requested by a Guardian journalist at the band's Dublin gig this week, an Arcade Fire marketing specialist said just that the band would keep on visiting on the side of their new collection, WE.
In her statement, Feist distanced herself from public shaming, which “might cause action, but those actions are done out of fear, and fear is not the place where we find our best selves or make our best decisions. Fear does not precipitate empathy or healing, nor does it open a safe space for these types of conversations to evolve, or for real responsibility and remorse to be offered to people who were harmed.”
Noting that she is "imperfect" and will "imperfectly navigate this decision," Feist concluded that "the best way to take care of my band, crew and family is to distance myself from this tour, not this conversation." The last two nights on stage, my songs made this decision for me. Hearing them through this lens was incongruous with what I've worked to make clear to myself throughout my career.
“I have always written songs to name my own subtle difficulties, to aspire to the best of myself and claim responsibility when I need it. And I'm claiming responsibility now and I'm going home." – Guardian
In a statement to Pitchfork, Butler, who is hitched to bandmate Régine Chassagne, saw having sexual relationship with the four individuals, yet said they were all not started by him and were consensual.
In another statement, he apologized “to anyone I have hurt with my behavior,” adding: “I continue to learn from my mistakes and work hard to become a better person, someone my son can be proud of. I regret not being more aware and in tune with the effect I have on people: I screwed up and, although it is not an excuse, I will continue to look forward and heal what can be healed, and learn from past experiences.”
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