Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer frontman
Maynard James Keenan is denying a rape allegation made on social media last week, calling it a "despicable false claim."
In a Twitter post on Thursday (June 28), Keenan wrote, "Many thanks to those of you who saw right through this despicable false claim that only does damage to the #metoo movement. And shame on those of you who perpetuate this destructive clickbait. As for my delayed but un-required response, I had my phone off. You should try it."
Many thanks to those of you who saw right through this despicable false claim that only does damage to the
#metoo movement. And shame on those of you who perpetuate this destructive clickbait. As for my delayed but un-required response, I had my phone off. You should try it.
— Maynard J Keenan (@mjkeenan)
June 28, 2018
On June 22, anonymous Twitter user @IWas17HeWas36 shared an alleged story from 2000 when A Perfect Circle was on tour with Nine Inch Nails. She wrote that the 36-year-old singer noticed her in the crowd, while she was watching with her boyfriend, and threw a water bottle in her direction. Soon thereafter, she said, a woman from Keenan's crew approached her and asked if she would like to meet the band. The woman only had one pass, so @IWas17HeWas36 said she told her boyfriend she would be right back and was allegedly escorted backstage, where Keenan "was sitting on a picnic
table and was staring at [her]."
She says Keenan signed an autograph on her hand and asked how old she was; she told him she was 17. From there, she claims, he told her, "I can't talk to you here. Let's go watch a movie," and pulled her to his tour bus. He allegedly led her to a bed in the back and put on a film before he started rubbing her neck and taking his pants off. "All I could do was sit there, looking at the movie, unable to move," @IWas17HeWas36 wrote. She then claims he raped her without a condom, giving her human papillomavirus (HPV) in the process.
"I don't remember the next few minutes but I do remember this- my boyfriend was waiting for me at the doorway where I had been lead," she continued. "His face was sick with worry. I didn't want to upset him so I kept it to myself."
@IWas17HeWas36 said it was because of the Time's Up and #MeToo movements that she felt she could come forward with her story, although she was still afraid to use her real name. "I've carried a sense of deep shame from this assault for many years," she wrote. "I thought it was my fault. How could I let him do this to me? But he was 36. I was 17. He knew exactly what he was getting away with. What could I have done differently? My body was paralyzed."
<45>Was wondering when the next celebrity name would drop.
