Wil Wagner of The Smith Street Band shares open letter addressing emotional abuse allegations

Back in February, The Guardian reported that Georgia McDonald, lead singer of Camp Cope, had accused Wagner of "harassment and emotional abuse" following their breakup.

In the statement, she wrote, "I gave permission for those emails to be released after Ryan Adams was exposed last week for all his abusive behaviours towards women."

She added, "I’ve been told it was just a bad breakup. I had to threaten him with an intervention order for him to stop harassing me. This was not a bad breakup. This was harassment and emotional abuse."

At the time, Wagner addressed the allegations, admitting that he'd said "incredibly hurtful things". The Smith Street Band cancelled their tour dates after support bands pulled out from their tour.

Five months later and Wagner has addressed the situation once more with an open letter posted on Facebook. He wrote, "We’ve been recording and are about to announce some shows but I feel like there’s some things that need addressing. This is not a call out, this is not an attempt to "cancel" anyone and I’m not trying to re open a fight or get revenge. I can’t stress how little I want to talk about any of this and that it’s none of anyone’s business. I’m sure this post will be undermined and attacked but I refuse to let someone ruin all of our lives with lies and I refuse to allow my name to be trampled into the dirt alongside actual criminals. I need to say this so I am able to move on and feel in control of my own life again. A lot of untrue and damaging things have been said about me over the last few months and there’s a lot I need to explain so please bear with me."

He added, "A few months ago Georgia McDonald from the band Camp Cope "gave permission" for someone else to publish emails I’d sent during our break up about four years ago and publicly accused me of being emotionally abusive. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Over the last few years I’ve made friends who all of a sudden drop off me and aren’t able to explain why. Bands that have opened for us have been contacted, at times almost threatened, and told not to work with us. Bands have been encouraged not to join our label and told all kinds of offensive and untrue rumours."

Wagner's statement goes on to reveal that he feels McDonald was the one taking things out of context, "The band and I took deliberate and at times very difficult steps to put as much distance between me and my ex as possible because that’s what I needed. And while Georgia played a guitar she took from me, was on the label that I’d previously been synonymous with, worked at the pub we rehearsed at, and, in many other ways I felt took over my life, she also went around telling people I was the one harassing her."

He also states that McDonald was the one emotionally abusing him, "Telling people someone threatened to kill you when you know that they didn’t is emotional abuse. Telling people someone behaved so badly they had a restraining order taken out on them when you know that they didn’t is emotional abuse. Spending years privately and publicly shit-talking and undermining someone until you’ve obliterated their self esteem only to tell them you love them when you see them and that they’re crazy for thinking you’d say anything bad about them is emotional abuse. So is dishing out vengeful and extraordinary punishments whenever someone fucks up and twisting words and situations to undermine the person you’re trying to control. Whipping up someone’s industry to gang up on them after they’d openly spoken about feeling vulnerable and lying to someone about themselves so much that they start to question who they actually are are both classic examples of emotional abuse. It’s strategic and it’s covert and it’s manipulative and it’s incredibly damaging."

The vocalist also reveals the extent to which his career was affected by the accusations, "If you think that I deserve punishment because you believe I abused Georgia during our relationship (something I’m adamant I didn’t do) then when have I been sufficiently punished? I’ve repeatedly been likened to racists, rapists, pedophiles and predators, my reputation is in tatters, my life’s work feels like it will amount to nothing and I’m increasingly depressed, isolated, anxious and exhausted. This nightmare has left me a completely broken version of the person I was five or so years ago. I don’t see any kind of future for myself that isn’t clouded by someone who’s already taken so much from the best years of my life. Our band has lost every opportunity we had coming our way as well as a substantial amount of money because we cancelled a tour after all being so fucked up by this entire situation. People have been unwilling to work with us, not because of my behaviour, but because of fear of getting called out by this rolling mob, something both really unfair and totally understandable."