When, on Thursday, the singer Larkin Grimm accused Swans frontman Michael Gira of raping her, he responded that he had been subject to a “slanderous lie”. Now, in a statement issued by his publicist and published on Pitchfork he has given a different account of the night in 2008 when the alleged incident took place, acknowledging that they had an “intimate encounter”.
Eight years ago, while I was still married to my first wife, Larkin Grimm and I headed towards a consensual romantic moment that fortunately was not consummated. As she wrote in her recent social media postings about that night, I said to her, “this doesn’t feel right,” and abruptly but completely our only intimate encounter ended. It was an awkward mistake.
Larkin may regret, as I certainly do, that the ill-advised tryst went even that far, but now, as then, I hold her in high esteem for her music and her courage as an artist.
I long ago apologized to my wife and family and told them the truth about this incident. My hope is that Larkin finds peace with the demons that have been darkening her soul since long before she and I ever met.
Gira and his wife Jennifer have both responded to Grimm’s accusation by questioning her mental health. In a Facebook post on Thursday, Jennifer Gira spoke of Grimm sending an “illiad of messages sent to my husband that are c-r-a-z-y -suffering from a manic/bipolar or chemical relapse episode”, and said: “Michael has shuddered and simply deleted her harassing emails/texts, rambling obsessive tomes, declarations of unrequited love, hate speech, and threats to him.”
