My Statement and Response to Xandu

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TW: Sexual and emotional abuse, mentions of body dysmorphia, eating disorders, suicide, manipulation and harassment.


Before I say anything, I want to apologize and take full accountability for the abusive and manipulative behavior made towards my ex, Xandu, and the people involved back in 2015. I also want to apologize to everyone I have hurt and who has felt betrayed by me. I have done and said many things I deeply regret because of the things I said when I was angry and scared and it was not right and extremely abusive. I am not denying those things happened and I am deeply sorry.

For the past five years, I have been actively taking steps to heal and move on, because I believe that if you don’t accept the problem you cannot heal. The reason I’ve tried to stay publicly silent in recent years about my relationship with Xandu is because as my presence has grown online, I’ve learned and realized that a platform comes with responsibility. Despite the pain, this situation has caused me and my desire to want to speak up at times, as an adult who has grown along with my following, I’ve wanted to avoid the pain that can result from bringing personal issues to a larger public arena, for anyone involved. Since 2015, when I was still a teenager and this relationship happened, I’ve attended therapy as much as I could afford (still more than 2 years) for dealing with my emotional outbursts.

I am here responding to Xandu’s statement as somebody who actively works to solve the problems that I have. I want to believe that he’s moved forward from our relationship, however, due to these accusations, it’s clear that he’s taking no accountability. I want to make it clear that I do believe Xandu has a right to speak his truth just as much as I do and I want to thank you for reading my statement and letting my voice be heard.

At this point, it’s not a matter of taking sides anymore. It’s a matter of people taking responsibility for their actions and stopping the spread of misinformation. Please bear in mind that the way Xandu illustrated himself throughout his statement painted him as the sole victim, when we both were in the wrong. I’d like to share my truth. There are people I have opened up to in the past that I trusted to keep the events that transpired private. Unfortunately, when you lose contact with people, the actions and events that happen can often be misconstrued and taken out of context.

Something to note: If you are here reading this hoping to find more receipts and gossip, that’s not what you’ll find. That’s not the point of this statement, and keeping “receipts” is something that has not been a priority for me on my journey to healing. I have actively deleted past chat logs out of wanting to heal and move on. I learned in my years of therapy that keeping potential triggers within arms reach is not conducive to healthy growth, so I have done my best to distance myself from those remnants of my past. If you’re genuinely here because you want to hear my truth and side of the story, then you can keep reading.


■ ■ My relationship with Xandu, and harmful obsessive tendencies ■ ■

Xandu and I were in a long distance relationship for 1-1 ½ years since July 2013. This was my first romantic relationship. We visited each other a total of three times. In early 2014, my obsessive behavior became apparent when Xandu started showing signs of suicidal tendencies. He would post “suicide notes” and disappear for days. It was alarming because he spoke of the untreated depression and anxiety he was fighting before I even met him. I would go days without knowing if he was dead or alive. This is significant because, while he claims me to be the cause of his depression and anxiety, the source of his struggles clearly predates my involvement.

The controlling and possessive nature I displayed towards his friends stemmed from his comments about their bodies. Specifically; towards much smaller women with body types that appeared underage, with thigh gaps and protruding collarbones. I had no problem with him being attracted to or being friends with other women, as long as he didn’t pursue them. My understanding was that we agreed to have a monogamous relationship. His occasional comments about other women became more frequent and suggestive and continued to make me more uncomfortable. At that time, I did not understand the severity of the comments, and over time they made me more self-conscious about my own body and I soon developed an eating disorder. I would starve myself for days before visiting him when we were together, hoping I’d look thin enough to gain his affection. I am very open about my struggle with Body Dysmorphia (that I’ve had been struggling with ever since I was a child) and I now understand the severity of the words and actions taken on me.

Xandu would be in group chats where he was surrounded only by others identifying as female calling them his “harem chats”. I have no idea what was going on in those chats, nor did I know they existed until after we broke up. From what I remember, I said “harem” because it was a recurring theme with him and his friends that he mostly talked to women. So his comments and his mostly talking to women socially caused the possessiveness towards him.

One of the points Xandu referred to in his statement was “a trip abroad,” which I suspect refers to his desire to travel to a country in South America, the name of which I can’t recall. He claimed he wanted to visit while meeting up and staying with one of his friends, which confused me because Xandu had never expressed interest in the location before. It also made me uncomfortable knowing he would rather travel halfway across the world to see another woman he just met other than his romantic partner, especially since he had no job at the time and was financially dependent on his parents. Xandu had been very vocal about my paranoia, calling me crazy until I genuinely believed it. This surfaced in a conversation with a friend of mine at that time. She had concerns that his actions were abusive and that I needed to call him out on it as his girlfriend. I brought up my concerns to Xandu in a way that was very toxic and manipulative because I was emotionally charged. I acknowledge that it was wrong of me to address and behave this way. Managing my emotional outbursts is one of the main things that I have been working on to better myself, since I was 17 and in a turbulent place when this relationship started.

Before the obsessiveness progressed, I would ask him if he had feelings towards other women, only to be called crazy and paranoid. He would say they were “just friends”. But it was really hard to believe him when his behavior did not line up with his words. Whenever we would argue about this or anything else, the arguments usually didn’t end until I said I was in the wrong, even at times that I wasn’t. He was never convinced that I felt it unless it ended with me crying or showing extreme emotion, so this became the norm in our relationship.

My suspicions were confirmed when he confessed to me that he had feelings for a friend of ours in December 2014, a year and five months after we started dating. This was right after another of his suicide scares. In respect of her privacy, I will not share her name. It hurt me to see him in so much pain and I convinced him to open up about his feelings to her, hoping it would relieve him. Unfortunately, it made things worse and he gaslit me to believe it was my fault because he felt guilty for having feelings towards her.

Near the beginning of 2015, Xandu was introduced to someone, on behalf of her request not to be named since she was pulled into this without consent, we’ll call her Girl B. Then Xandu introduced her to me. At the time I considered us all friends and we got along, or at least that’s what I believed. Because of Xandu’s suggestive behavior towards women in the past, I began to see the pattern repeat with Girl B. Things like avoiding calling me to call her. Constantly commenting on her appearance to me, and doing extra things to win her favor that were out of character. During all of this, my paranoia and suspicions of him cheating on me during our relationship became more clear as I caught Xandu flirting with Girl B in group calls. The more he avoided me, the more the anger accumulated. I felt like I couldn’t say anything because I knew he was going to keep on invalidating my feelings. Eventually, these feelings made me snap.


■ ■ My last trip abroad, the sexual abuse, and my mental breakdown ■ ■

In April 2015, Xandu claimed that we had a 3 hour call begging for me back and bawling his eyes out when it was the opposite. Xandu left out that he was the one who wanted to break it off. I freaked out and repeatedly called him until he picked up. I was the one calling him, apologizing and asking for him back in desperation. I had bought a ticket to Sweden that I saved up for instead of going to college right after I graduated. He told me that if I didn’t visit him, I would equal out the last ticket he bought for me. Unfortunately, I was insistent on going because I was desperate to keep him in my life. (Which I know now, was a horrible mistake.) We came to an agreement that I would visit, but as a solely platonic relationship. This isn’t how things went.

The moment I got there and entered his house, he pinned me to the wall in the hallway and kissed me asking for me back. The moment after we slept together, he dumped me again right after. He told me “as long as you’re here, let’s pretend that we’re together,” which confused me a lot emotionally, and told me not to tell anyone we were sleeping together. I didn't for the entire 2 months I was there. I was sleeping in a separate room next to his. The walls were very thin so during some of the nights while I slept, I would hear him laughing and talking to people. One night, I got fed up and went to his room to tell him to be quiet, but his door was locked. I knocked on it and he poked his head out, pretending he just woke up, telling me he wasn’t talking to anybody, which was a lie. The entire time, I felt like I was going crazy.

There would be days he’d knock on my door because he wanted to cuddle me. Sometimes the cuddling would get intimate and it made me uncomfortable because he was insistent on telling me our relationship was “platonic”. He assured me that all friends do these things with each other. There were times our interactions were consensual, and many other times they weren’t. It messed with me because I still had feelings for him, and he knew that. There were times he would touch me in private and in public without my consent. I often went along with it and didn’t overtly say no because I felt pressured to appease the person I had feelings for. It would be things like touching my genitals, groping me, and even wanting to record videos of us having sex. Just because there were times where it was consensual, doesn’t mean every time was consensual. This happened all throughout the 2 months I was visiting.

Then, one night I regret most of all - getting drunk with him. I drank so much I could barely walk. I ended up passing out on his bed and waking up about an hour later to him touching my genitals, breasts and neck. He tried to get on top of me and I was too drunk to push him off all the way. I was scared and confused because the person I had feelings for was giving me affection, but I knew I didn’t want it like this. I mustered the courage to hit him in the face and he rolled off me. He got aggressive, started calling me hurtful names, and drunkenly accused me of trying to seduce him the whole time I was there. I moved to my room and locked my door the whole night and passed out in the morning. Xandu claims that his parents would have heard if anything happened. But his parents' room was on the other side of the house, and I didn’t scream because I was too afraid of waking everyone up. That morning is when the nightmares started to get really bad and I would purposefully stay up all night just to get a few hours of sleep in the morning. Since then I barely ate, I barely slept. I was suffocating. Whether or not you consider this non-consensual or attempted rape is something I cannot dictate. All I can speak to are my own feelings of having felt violated and taken advantage of in that moment.

My own suicidal thoughts and tendencies became stronger, and I did run away multiple times out of wanting to escape my toxic surroundings, but always regretted it immediately afterwards. I would get lost and it would take me an hour to find my way back to Xandu’s house. I am still incredibly grateful for the shelter and the hospitality Xandu’s family showed me and I am so, so sorry to have worried them. I understand now how my actions affected a family. I needed to get out of there, though, and at the time running away felt like my only coping mechanism. I had no one to confide in. One by one, people I thought were my friends were unfriending me and unfollowing me, I didn’t know who to trust. My IRL friends were busy with school and I would only be able to talk to them really late at night because of the time zone. I was desperate for my voice to be heard. I would vague tweet as a cry for help. I emotionally suffocated and manipulated the few people willing to be there hoping someone could “take my side”. Selfishly backing myself into a corner. It wasn’t right, and deep down I knew that. I understand now that what I was going through was a form of “fight or flight”. I was not mentally capable of observing the situation happening around me and only focused on what was happening to me in a means to survive. I was latching onto any string I could find to wrongly justify to myself that I was doing was the right thing.

One of the times after I ran away, I came back and locked myself in my room, wanting to be left alone. I sat in a fetal position in the corner of the room trying to calm down. Xandu came home after looking for me and knocked on my door. He took my silence as an excuse to break the door open. He kneeled down next to me and scolded me for running away. In a response to the shock of him breaking the door, I sat there frozen. I kept on stuttering words about death, murder, and things that didn’t make sense. Things I knew I was not capable of doing. I found myself in an unsafe situation as my boundaries had been crossed, so I wrongfully and regrettably said many things that were hurtful and abusive. Xandu kept calling me a monster and telling me that I couldn’t leave the house, or even my room, without a reason. Looking back, I understand why he didn’t want me to do that, but I don’t believe it justified his verbal abuse.

The very last time I ran away was when a close friend of mine and Xandu’s was visiting him. When they found me, they tried to drag me home because I could barely use my limbs. I was sick physically and mentally and needed to be taken to the hospital. Instead, Xandu insisted on taking me in his room and locking it to scold me once again in front of our friend. I had a mental breakdown in front of them and started screaming and crying in hopes Xandu’s mom could hear me. It was a cry for help. Xandu then proceeded to push me against his bed, shoving his hands over my mouth telling me to shut up. I couldn’t breathe, and our friend stood and watched Xandu do this to me. I finally started calming down and Xandu and our friend decided to watch a movie right after doing their best to pretend nothing just happened. Looking back, I understand we were all young and our friend must have been horrified, but that still does not justify them letting Xandu openly lie about what happened. (I’ve apologized multiple times to this person in the past, but if they would like to talk more about it, they are welcome and encouraged to reach out to me again for discussion.)


■ ■ Addressing the screenshots ■ ■

I fully take responsibility for the way I acted, and realize that what I said and did was wrong. When I look at these screenshots, I don’t see the woman I am today. I see a struggling and lonely girl who was certainly in the wrong but desperately needed help. These screenshots are a great representation of where I was mentally while dating and visiting Xandu. Crazy. Psychotic. Obsessed. Everything he told me I was, over the course of a year, until I actually became it. Xandu claims that throughout the entire trip, I was out to sabotage him the entire time, when in reality it was my response to the emotional and sexual abuse happening around me. I had reached my limit and wasn’t okay, but wasn’t willing to accept it. I was infatuated with the illusion that he could still have feelings for me if I kept trying hard enough, and made the harmful mistake of projecting my possessiveness of Xandu towards Girl B. I was lashing out, stalking, and saying awful things to her and him before and after the trip. It was extremely unfair of me to put Girl B in that position and I take full accountability for what I said. Regardless of where I was mentally, it does not excuse my behavior and I am deeply sorry for that, and have already apologized to her in the past. (I am also still open to dialogue with her, if she ever wishes to revisit this situation.)


■ ■ Regarding doxxing and other harassment and issues ■ ■

- Xandu claims that I doxxed him and shared his address with people which is not true. In fact, it’s illegal to dox someone, and it’s not right to put anyone’s life in danger like that. I also didn’t openly share my truth with strangers. I never owned a Discord server dedicated to spying/stalking him. I was, however, invited to a private area of a server by a close friend, whose goal was to help find a safe space for survivors of abuse. If anyone in that server was ever spying on anyone, I was not made aware of it. If I knew I would have left it immediately.

- The “blacklist” shared in a screenshot mentioning sprinkles, fondue, etc. was not posted by me, and from my understanding was not truly meant as a blacklist. Again, this wasn’t posted by me, so I can’t speak to the intent of it, but at the time I didn’t know what it was for and didn’t think it was a big deal, nor did I participate in its creation. (I also don’t have a blacklist, in case anyone was wondering.)

- As for the “dick pic” situation- my friend at the time texted me while i was drunk, and asked me; "Can I send your ex dick pics?" and because I was under the influence I said yes. While I now understand and see this as immature, it was not organized harassment in the way it’s being portrayed.

- The tweet I made about Xandu cheating on me from 2015 happened a week or two after I came home to the US. I woke up from a nightmare screaming, and my friend’s mother had to comfort me. Later that morning, I tried confiding in one of my friends at the time, and they straight up told me that I deserved the abuse I got, and that Girl B and Xandu had been together for almost a month. I had realized I had been lied to by Xandu when he said he wasn’t in a relationship the entire time I was visiting him. I freaked out and tweeted without thinking. Minutes later, Xandu called me angrily, yelling. He threatened that if I didn’t take the tweet down, he would spread a rumor that I was cheating on him so I gave in and deleted it. Xandu kept yelling and calling me horrible things over the phone. My friend had to take the phone away from me because she could hear everything and tried to mediate the situation. It felt awful, frustrating, and there was much more context surrounding that tweet than what was shared, as is the case for many of the excerpts Xandu shared.

- Xandu is really pushing to make it seem like I’m trans-phobic in his line:

“she on more than one occasion deliberately misgendered trans/non-binary individuals as female just so she could say that I was talking and “flirting” with other girls. This even included close and/or mutual friends of ours.”

With only one screenshot as “evidence,” which does not prove his accusation. However, I acknowledge that I was once a teenager and not as educated as I am now. I do and forever will support trans rights as a member and ally of the LGBTQ+ community. And if there was a time in my life when I accidentally misgendered someone in my past, I deeply apologize and will hold myself accountable to be better.

- Regarding the financial aspects of Xandu’s accusations, I would like to square this away with his family and apologize for not doing so sooner. While I do not wish to maintain direct contact with Xandu, I invite him to send an email if he wishes so that we can discuss that topic specifically.


■ ■ Attempt at closure and reaching out to Xandu directly ■ ■

In November 2016, I had reached out to Xandu with a letter via email, hoping we could have closure. We had a call, and it lasted about 3 hours. When the call finished, I realized that we didn’t actually discuss anything meaningful. During our conversation when I tried to bring up a concern of mine to smooth out our rough past, he would quickly change the subject to something ”positive”. Dodging the conversation to avoid the real problems at hand.

To Xandu, I would like to say:

We parted ways many years ago after that call in 2016. I didn’t want to be in your life anymore. I don’t know if you genuinely thought I was stalking you all these years, but I wasn’t. I was living my life, taking therapy, and actively practicing in bettering myself so I wouldn’t repeat the cycle. I’m aware I’ve said and done stupid, petty things along the way, confided thoughts and struggles to the wrong people, but I’ve learned from those experiences. I have grown and matured on my personal journey, and I’m not gonna sit here feeling sorry for myself when I know it’s better for everyone's sake and mental health to move on and learn from this. It’s been five years, Xandu, it’s time to let me go. Let this go. I have gone out of my way to remove any connection I had with you, professionally and personally, so I’m not sure why you still think that I’m in your life.

Five years later, I’ve found a place to call home with friends who genuinely love me and push me to be the best version of myself I can be. I’ve worked hard for a stable career in music, and finally know the direction I want to go. I have a romantic partner who has taught me the importance of courage and embracing who I am while healthily holding me accountable to grow and change for the better. He has supported me in healing through the trauma you put me through. I will never be apologetic for finding happiness, Xandu, and I hope someday you find your own happiness too. Regardless of the pain and grief we went through, I hope our lessons and experiences can make us stronger.

Again, I want to apologize to everyone who I’ve hurt or has felt betrayed, and if you yourself were involved in this situation and wish for a direct apology I’d be more than happy to talk to you. Out of respect for everyone and hope of putting this in the past, I ask that you do not harass me, Xandu or anyone involved, moving forward. I’ll be taking a break for a while after I release this statement, for the sake of my mental health.

Thank you.

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