Skip to content
News

Sigur Rós Drummer Resigns Following Sexual Assault Allegation

sigur ros drummer orri pall dyrason resigns after sexual assault allegation
BERLIN, GERMANY - OCTOBER 09: Drummer Orri Pall Dyrason of Icelandic band Sigur Ros performs live on stage during a concert at Tempodrom on October 9, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Stefan Hoederath/Redferns)

Longtime Sigur Rós drummer Orri Páll Dýrason has resigned from the band following an allegation of sexual assault. Band members Jónsi Birgisson and Georg Hólm announced the resignation in a brief note posted to Facebook this morning.

The allegation against Dýrason emerged last week, when artist Meagan Boyd published a description of the alleged assault to Instagram. She writes that she met Dýrason in January 2013 at a club in Los Angeles:

“I also engaged in a kiss with him before falling asleep in the same bed, after that I completely knocked out. I woke up with the feeling of being penetrated without my consent during a deep slumber.. it happened twice that night, and I wondered myself why I didn’t leave after the first time- but I was drunk, dead tired, in shock, and this was right before I ever heard of anything like Uber/lyft … but none of that should matter because no one deserves to be raped/touched/licked/fucked without CONSENT.”

Boyd added that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony about her alleged assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had inspired her to speak out now. During the past six years, she wrote, “I felt no one would believe me, I felt I had been irresponsible for trusting [Dýrason] just because he was in a band I loved and I respected him as an artist.”

Boyd subsequently posted what she indicated was email correspondence between herself and Dýrason, as Pitchfork reports. In this correspondence, Dýrason apparently denied the accusation, writing, “I cannot understand why you would want to publicly accuse me of something I did not do,” and that “my experience from that night is completely different from yours.” Boyd replied, in part, “You are gaslighting me.”

The alleged email correspondence has since been deleted. In a follow-up, Boyd said the post was flagged for violating Instagram’s community standards and that it was not her decision to remove it.

Spin has contacted a representative of Sigur Rós for additional comment.

Update (12 p.m. Eastern): In a bilingual statement published to his Facebook page, Dýrason commented on his decision to leave Sigur Rós without addressing the substance of Boyd’s allegations. Resigning “is a difficult decision for me, but I cannot have these serious allegations influence the band and the important and beautiful work that has been done there for the last years,” he wrote. You can read his full statement here.