Regarding recent sexual assault allegations against Mitski

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. 

In light of these and other issues that arose during my review and fact-checking of this person’s account, it is my firm belief that this story is a fabrication. I do not write this lightly. As I have said, I myself am a survivor of sexual assault, and I am a strident believer in taking claims of sexual abuse seriously. I will not speculate as to this person’s motivations or mental health, and I would advise others to do the same. This will be my only post on the matter. 

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