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Report: Ryan Adams Accused Of Sexual Misconduct By Multiple Women

Ryan Adams
Ryan Adams (Andy Witchger [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
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NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) — Singer-songwriter Ryan Adams has been accused of sexual impropriety with women, including the use of his celebrity to trade sexual favors for jump-starting the careers of aspiring female artists.

According to the New York Times, Adams, who is 44, was accused by seven women and more than a dozen associates of a “pattern of manipulative behavior in which Adams dangled career opportunities while simultaneously pursuing female artists for sex.”

The women also accused Adams of turning vengeful and retracting his offers of career assistance when his advances were spurned, and of subjecting women to harassment, both in person and on social media.

His accusers run the gamut from teenaged fans to his ex-wife, singer, and actress Mandy Moore.

One of his accusers, who the times refers to as Ava but did not identify as she was a minor at the time, says she began corresponding with Adams when she was 14 and claims the conversations quickly turned sexual.

Ava alleged to the Times that they had intimate conversations on the video conference service Skype, in which Adams exposed himself to her.

The Times reported reviewing more than 3,000 text messages between the two, exchanged over a 9-month period while the fan was 15 and 16 years old.

Andrew B. Brettler, Adams’s lawyer told the Times that Adams did not recall the interactions and that Adams “unequivocally denies” engaging in any conduct online with anyone he knew to be underage.

Through Brettler, Adams told the Times that he also rejected the notion that he had the ability to “make or break careers” and denied the “extremely serious and outlandish accusations” leveled against him in the Times report.


Other women told similar stories about Adams. Phoebe Bridgers, who was then 20, claimed to The Times that Adams invited her to the studio of his label Pax-Am Records, where he had her perform a song for him. Bridgers told the Times that Adams claimed to be impressed by her performance, and gifted her an expensive vintage guitar.

Bridgers claims he proposed recording a single for her on Pax-Am but she claims their relationship turned more personal after Adams began sending “flirty” texts and began a romantic relationship.  Bridgers told the Time that the relationship quickly soured after Adams became obsessive and controlling, leading her to eventually break off their romantic association.

Bridgers told the Times that Adams kept making offers, including opening for him on an upcoming tour, which Bridgers claims she accepted after having a discussion with Adams and her manager about his behavior.

However, while on tour, Bridgers alleges that Adams almost immediately exposed himself to her in a hotel room.

“The first day, he asked me to bring him something in his hotel room,” she told the Times. “I came upstairs and he was completely nude.”

Through his attorney, Adams denied Bridgers allegations and disputed the nature of their relationship but conceded that he did have a brief, consensual affair with her.

Singer and actress Mandy Moore was married to Adams for six years and accused him of psychologically abusive behavior that stalled her career. Moore claims Adams used to tell her she was not a “real musician, because you don’t play an instrument,” the Times reported.

Moore says she released her sixth album shortly after they were married in 2009 and has not released new material since.

Through his attorney, Adams told the Times that Moore’s characterization of their relationship was not consistent with his own memories of their time together. He also claimed that he was supportive of her career.


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