The four founding members of the pop-punk group All Time Low sued at least three individuals on Thursday for defamation after they allegedly made false claims on social media about the group harassing or assaulting teenage followers in a sexual manner.
The daring action raises the legal stakes for the troubled emo rockers and will surely draw additional attention after the Maryland-bred group refuted the internet claims in an all-caps statement last October.
According to the complaint, the band is forced to organize and make use of the civil court system in order to find the perpetrators, demonstrate the veracity of the disparaging remarks, and pursue justice. The band asserts that they are unaware of the identity of the online accusers.
All Time Low Controversy
Lead guitarist Jack Barakat, singer/guitarist Alex Gaskarth, bassist Zack Merrick, and drummer Rian Dawson are the members of the band. They say they want to use subpoenas and other forms of discovery to find out who has been defaming them.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much else that can be done to salvage their businesses and fully rebuild their reputations. The lawsuit further alleges that the band will contribute any money earned from this legal action to organizations that assist victims of sexual assault.
In October, the band was the target of claims that went viral. The first defendant, known in court documents as Doe 1, is a user of TikTok who, when she was thirteen, sent a mysterious message under the handle @mini.grew, saying that “a famous pop punk band” had offered her alcohol on a tour bus and requested her bra “for their nasty collection.”
The lawsuit claims that although the woman didn’t specifically name the band, she “gave easily solved clues” that helped everyone agree that the group was All Time Low. The complaint states that @spidahkii, a Twitter user, promptly came forward to dispute Doe 1’s claims.
She submitted a photo allegedly showing her and Doe 1 at the performance, claiming to have attended it together, and she denied Doe 1’s allegations that it “never happened.” According to the lawsuit, Doe 1 later acknowledged posting her remarks online “to be petty towards a peer” and turned off her video. Since then, she has been posting under a different alias.
A few weeks later, another complainant went by the handle @ATLstatement and shared a long statement on TikTok and Twitter, claiming that in 2011, when she was 15 and he was 22, Barakat had sexually assaulted her. She said that when she followed the band on their future tours, the inappropriate interaction persisted for years.
The band asserts in the updated filing that the lady, identified as Doe 2 in the case, “maliciously” submitted the “elaborate and completely fabricated story,” knowing it was untrue. Doe 2’s message is still available on TikTok as of Thursday morning, but her Twitter account has been suspended since.
Another Twitter user, @dietsodasage, claimed to have tallied 97 accusations against the band in a message that was posted on October 24. The user, who went by the handle Doe 3, commented, “If 97 people aren’t enough, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
The lawsuit says that Doe 3 falsely and egregiously asserted, without providing any evidence at all, that the band had been the target of “97 allegations,” an accusation that went viral on the Internet.
The lawsuit contains a screenshot of a post credited to @dietsodasage that reads, “I feel kind of weird about how people took my tweet about the ATL situation :/.” The account on Twitter has since been deleted. I’m likely going to stay secret for a few days because I didn’t intend for things to proceed in that manner.
The members of All Time Low replied to the anonymous claims on TikTok and Twitter as “absolutely and unequivocally false” in an online statement that was published on October 25. Fans responded to the three posts with fury and counterattacked, provoking a flurry of angry questions, comments, and statements from the band.
Twitter user Samantha Garcia responded by posting a picture of herself and Barakat that was purportedly taken when she was 14 and he was 21. At her request, the guitarist allegedly “excitedly said ‘boobies!'” before marking her chest.
Other than the fact that the culture at the time ought not to have encouraged adolescent females to oversexualize themselves for “the scene,” I have no personal thoughts about it. She wrote, “It’s unfortunate that I felt at ease enough to ask an adult man to sign my boob, but that’s life.”
