🆘

BUT i will say that many people on here are being needlessly obtuse. Its reasonable to have doubts about such a severe (and currently baseless) accusation, especially considereing that op has acknowledged that theyre an unreliable narrator. They profess to have DID and PTSD, and show palpable signs of psychosis (ie saying the government killed their father, that their phone is bugged, saying they went directly to the FBI, their ages not matching up w the timeframe, etc). I dont for a second think that this person is lying about what they said- obviously they believe it, and are in dire need of some help. The problem is everyone else on here refusing to analyze the allegations at all. Anyone who does is called insensitive, a CSA apologist, making fun of trafficked children etc etc. That kind of reaction to a reasonable suspicion is creating an environment that not only rejects the truth but rejects even the pursuit of facts. People are being attacked for questioning op, but if we arent allowed to question or look into the allegations what exactly are we supposed to do?

Involvement with child sex trafficking is an extremely serious thing. tumblrs kangaroo courts dont understand how to not be polarized and therefore anyone implicated is guilty until proven innocent- often even after that. People have been accusing celebrities of things like this since they came about. Its nothing new. Just like you wouldnt believe something you read in a tabloid that isnt backed up by facts, dont just believe anything you read online because op claims to be a CSA victim.

What are you going to do if it's real? If it's not? Personally kill Mitski? No, so why the hell do you care so much about encouraging people to harass someone?

That's what that is by the way. Harassment. This person can't hurt Mitski without evidence so it's not like you've got anything to protect? If you don't believe the victim just ignore the post. Obsessively trying to prove them wrong is a terrible thing to do.

Fuck your faux moral outrage for the poor innocent Mitski stans. Either support CSA victims or quietly leave.

Long Answer: A blog on tumblr doing so to a well-known celebrity with far more social power cannot conceivably hurt that person unless their accusation was true. Even if it is, oftentimes it still won't. So yes, it is a harmless remark because a poor trans girl abandoned by her family is physically incapable of causing any harm whatsoever to a celebrity. Just looking at how this has gone through the news cycle is enough to prove that.

-Mitski is innocent. You can stop cancelling her.

August 13, 2019

My name is Peyton Thomas. I am a freelance music journalist and my writing has appeared in Pitchfork and Billboard, among other publications. The views expressed in this post are my own.

On Sunday, August 10, 2019, I received a message from a Tumblr user purporting to be an eighteen-year-old girl, who alleged to have been sexually abused by Mitski. A screenshot of this message is below. I have censored their username and icon to protect this person from harassment.

If you are unable to view the screenshot, the message reads, in full, “I was sexually abused by Mitski for years while underage. please DM me if you want information on this. I have made many posts in the past but none have been noticed.” 

As a survivor of sexual assault myself, it was important for me to provide a safe opportunity for this person to share their story. I sent them the following private reply. I took a screenshot before I sent the reply, for record-keeping purposes:

In case you are unable to view the screenshot, my reply reads, in full, “Can you please send any more details you’re comfortable sharing to my e-mail address? I’ll keep everything you send me completely private and confidential.” 

On Sunday, August 11, 2019, at 12:37 AM, I received an extensive, highly detailed e-mail from this person, totaling 1,046 words. After privately discussing the contents of the e-mail with another freelance journalist, I made the decision not to respond to this person, and to block them on Tumblr to discourage further contact. 

The person with whom I corresponded has since made public claims about having been sexually abused by Mitski, and those claims have gone viral.

I am going to say this as clearly and unambiguously as I can. I have extensively fact-checked this person’s claims and I have spoken to Mitski’s manager about the claims. It is now very clear to me that this story is a fabrication. 

I promised this person privacy and confidentiality, so I will refrain from sharing the text of their e-mail. I will, however, share a few points regarding the content of the e-mail and this person’s account: 

1. The e-mail contained information that this person has not shared on their public blog, including information that is categorically false. 

2. Though this person purports to have known Mitski for nearly a decade, their e-mail misstated a number of basic, public, and easily verifiable biographical facts about Mitski. 

3. This person provided no documentation for any of their claims, nor any evidence that they had ever met Mitski, corresponded with her, or spent time with her. 

4. This person has publicly claimed to have been raped by Mitski at a concert in Memphis, Tennessee on July 10, 2015. They claimed to have been fourteen years old at the time. They expanded upon this claim in their e-mail to me.  However, Greg Rutkin, a musician who performed with Mitski at that concert, has debunked this claim. Furthermore, the concert in question was open only to people over the age of eighteen. Venues are generally strident about age restrictions, and it is highly unlikely that a fourteen-year-old could have attended this specific concert.

5. This person has publicly claimed to have been repeatedly raped by Mitski during Mitski’s time at Purchase College. They claimed to have been between nine and eleven years old at the time. When asked by another Tumblr user how this was possible – that is, how a nine-year-old could have attended college – they claimed that they did not attend Purchase College, but merely lived in the area. However, in their e-mail to me, they explicitly claimed to have been formally enrolled in classes at Purchase College at the age of ten or eleven. They provided no documentation for this claim. I mention this detail only because it directly contradicts their public statements on the matter. 

However, I’m still not totally on board with this because:

your fiancee was posting about Mitski, and I’m pretty sure you’d tell your fiancee about this, as far as I’m aware and have been told by others;

you yourself posted about Mitski, and even trauma bonding, especially considering your PTSD, wouldn’t allow you to see the face of your alleged rapist, and to reblog multiple times especially;

you found it more pertinent to mention exposure that your post got, despite posting it on a social media platform and using the tagging system extensively to reach the most amount of people;

the fact that you waited until Mitski was taking a break for her mental, physical, and emotional health to out this after her touring for about five years straight;

you found it pertinent to post it on social media rather than going to an actual news outlet, or another law enforcement establishment, to get charges pressed as the statute of limitations likely still stands. 

i do not believe the current mitski allegation, with the current information we have. yes, victims do not owe anyone information about their trauma– until they make a public accusation that they are presenting as true. people who read this accusation, and are expected to accept it as the truth, are allowed to ask for proof. 

op deserves to be respected. please for the love of god stop sending her messages! she’s asked for time to come out with further evidence, and that’s fair. but honestly, there’s nothing indicating that this person has even ever met mitski, never mind been abused by her. we don’t even know who this person is, alright? this is an anonymous blogging website. 

there are a lot of general issues with the story that many others have pointed out, but i’m not really interested in playing detective. that’s not really my place, but i do respect that others are pointing out what they see publicly.

my issues are largely from a logistical standpoint. in 2012, op was 11. this would make mitski 21, and by op’s own statement, in college. i’m not well versed in how much sex trafficking a child to you costs, but considering what we know about mitski’s financial history, and college students in general, it’s not really plausible to me that she was in a position to partake in a sex trafficking ring. the only time of her life that would be in the realm of possibility is right now, with her current success. and, frankly, i don’t see her even having that much money now considering how niche her audience is

how would mitski, at 21, have access to a sex trafficking ring and the means to participate in it? if op can provide something more concrete, can answer that question, she has my full support. but this story just doesn’t make…sense. it doesn’t add up, and until it does, blacklisting an artist whose personal life we know next to nothing about just isn’t it for me. 

i knew amber dollars from 2015-2016 or so and i’d say were close internet friends. the mitski accusations are very alarming to me simply because i knew her accuser so well in the past. i’m not trying to discredit nor support her, but i simply want to put what i know towards her post.

i met amber around late 2014/early 2015 (time frames are super sketchy) because she had previously dated someone who had spread false rumors about me being an abuser when i was 14 or so. anyways, we had become close friends through that at the time, although we remained separated by the continent (i live in washington, she bounced between tennessee, kentucky, and north carolina, the latter of which she was living in at the time that i knew her)

first off, in her post, she states that the specific incident of sexual assault occured at the hi tone cafe in memphis sometime in early 2015. at this time, she had been living in north carolina and brought up no instance of going to this concert (at least, from what i remember). that said, she did tell me that she lived in memphis, but during the time that i knew her, she had lived in north carolina.

second, most of what i remember from our friendship was her drug-induced conversations. she talked about drugs A LOT. i think at one point she got arrested for stealing DXM from a drug store. this combined with previous mental health issues, meant that she would go on long conversations relating to psychosis, potentially drug-induced. she had many a suicidal breakdown during this time, and i’d often be very scared to know if she was going to be alive for not. i bring this up because in her allegations, she said that she was forcibly drugged against her will as a young child. in previous reddit screenshots, she had also talked about how she did intense psychedelics that had caused her to believe that her dad ran a NSA brainwashing cult. this whole incident could potentially be due to some sort of drug induced psychosis, as stated before. but if the allegations are true, then maybe the mental health issues could’ve come from that.

third, i do not remember her ever saying a single thing about SUNY purchase. doesn’t mean that this didn’t happen. but i simply do not know why she would’ve been at this college at such a young age, and why she would have contact with students such as mitski. originally people jumped on her for saying that she attended SUNY purchase, since she would’ve been 11 in the early 2010s (i’m 19, she is 18, can confirm i remember her being about a year younger than i). she eventually clarified that she was at the school at the age 11. but i don’t know why she would be at SUNY purchase at that age honestly.

i’m not trying to take sides here. just providing what i know. i haven’t interacted with amber since about late 2015, maybe early 2016 at the very latest. i simply lost contact with her. i hope both parties find goodwill.

-june