It was a year ago last February when songwriter Ryan Adams was hit with allegations of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct by seven different women, including Phoebe Bridgers, This Is Us star Mandy Moore, and one woman who says she was only 14 when they were involved. Since then, the FBI launched an investigation into Adams’ behavior, his upcoming music was delayed, and the Heartbreaker artist returned to Twitter with the promise that he had “a lot to say” and would be sharing it soon. “All the beauty in a life cannot be reduced to rubble for lies,” he wrote.
Contrary to the tweet, Adams has more or less stayed off the radar since then. Over the holiday weekend, however, he returned with an apology published in The Daily Mail.
“There are no words to express how bad I feel about the ways I’ve mistreated people throughout my life and career,” he begins in the piece, which documents his pursuit of sobriety with “professional help.” He adds, “[N]o amount of growth will ever take away the suffering I had caused. I will never be off the hook and I am fully accountable for my harmful behavior, and will be for my actions moving forward.”
He acknowledges in the piece that many read it as “the same empty bullshit apology that I’ve always used when I was called out,” and, well, he’s not wrong. This morning, Moore, his ex-wife, addressed the apology on Today, saying that she finds it “curious that someone would make a public apology but not do it privately.”
“Speaking for myself, I’ve not heard from him,” she continued. “I’m not looking for an apology necessarily, but l do find it curious that someone would do an interview about it without actually making amends privately.”