Alice Glass, co-founder and former singer of Crystal Castles, has published a long statement to her website alleging “almost a decade of abuse, manipulation and psychological control” by her former bandmate Ethan Kath.
In her statement, Glass alleges that “the first time [Kath] took advantage of me was when I was around 15,” and he was a decade older. (Glass and Kath’s birth names are Margaret Osborn and Claudio Palmieri, respectively.) She also alleges that Kath gave her drugs and alcohol before sex that “wasn’t always consensual,” and that he controlled “my eating habits, who I could talk to, where I could go, what I could say in public, what I was allowed to wear.”
Glass’s statement also details alleged physical abuse. “He held me over a staircase and threatened to throw me down it,” she writes. “He picked me up over his shoulders and threw me onto concrete. He took pictures of my bruises and posted them online.”
According to the statement, Crystal Castles’ well-trodden origin story–that Kath had recorded what Glass thought was a vocal warm-up for “Alice Practice,” which became their debut single–was concocted to minimize her contributions to the band. “I was miserable and my lyrics indirectly spoke to the pain and oppression that I was enduring,” she writes.
Glass departed Crystal Castles in 2014, citing “a multitude of reasons both professional and personal.” In the post, she wrote, “Leaving Crystal Castles was the single most difficult decision I’ve ever made—that band was everything to me. My music, my performances, and my fans were all I had in the world. I gave that up and started over not because I wanted to but because I had to.” Kath has continued the project with a new singer named Edith Frances.
A request for comment to a Crystal Castles representative was not immediately returned. Read Glass’s full statement here.
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