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audiences as it discusses topics

1:24

that can be upsetting, such as

1:26

emotional, physical and sexual violence, rape

1:29

and murder. Content warnings

1:31

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1:33

resources for survivors can be

1:35

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1:37

Some survivor names have been changed

1:40

for anonymity purposes. Pseudonyms

1:42

are given to minors in these stories

1:44

for their privacy and protection. Testimony

1:47

shared by guests of the show is

1:49

their own and does not necessarily reflect

1:51

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1:53

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should not be construed as...

2:00

advice nor is the information

2:02

a question

2:32

may's companies please

2:43

note at the time of this episode

2:45

release Kevin Elliott could not be reached

2:47

for comment. That

2:52

night we got into a heated argument.

2:54

All of us, I have to drive

2:56

everybody back home. Still, Kevin doesn't say

2:58

a word to Anthony the entire way

3:00

home. So it's already awkward. I drop

3:03

off Anthony and then Kevin starts talking

3:05

to me. He's going on this weird

3:07

transphobic rant came at me with some

3:09

weird shit. I was just really bothered

3:11

by that whole conversation. The student knows

3:13

my brother's gay. He knows all the

3:15

bands I've been booking for all the

3:17

connections I've been making. Drew's wearing dresses

3:19

to our shows. Drew's been supporting the

3:21

LGBT queer punk scene since before me.

3:23

Anthony is super level headed. It's just this

3:26

one guy's hatred that's coming out more and

3:28

more and it was just really bothering me.

3:30

So I drop him off and I noticed

3:32

immediately that he left his phone in my

3:34

car. In weird relationships when you have

3:36

these red flags and feelings, sometimes people tend to

3:38

go through the people's phones. I open

3:41

his phone. And that's when I

3:43

open this bombshell of weirder shit. I open

3:45

Pandora's box and find out him and this

3:47

other dude have been going off the rails

3:49

for the last six to eight months that

3:51

we've been active as a band or trying

3:54

to be a band. He's talking to this

3:56

guy, John Bennett. He had added me on

3:58

Instagram and I knew he was of

4:00

Kevin's friends, but I didn't know the

4:02

extent. I just knew him as an

4:04

Instagram mutual friend of Kevin's that was

4:06

supporting us. I immediately see like

4:08

a message between him and John Bennett, something

4:10

about how he wants to kill all of

4:12

us. So I start going through it.

4:14

I had to go back to when we started a

4:16

band. I'm going between his text

4:18

threads and Instagram and I just come up

4:21

on this trove of the most vile shit,

4:23

weird, rapey, groomy,

4:26

just all the grossest shit you can think of

4:28

between him and his friend, John Bennett. It's

4:30

basically him talking shit about all of us

4:33

and how they want to fuck my wife

4:35

and Anthony's wife and Drew's girlfriend of 20

4:37

years. All this gnarly shit. Plus he's talking

4:40

racial shit about all these people that he

4:42

grew up with that he still talks to

4:44

today. Just to paint

4:46

a further picture, I'm looking at some

4:48

of the screenshots of the messages between

4:50

him and John Bennett to give people

4:52

some examples of the kinds of things

4:55

that they're saying to each other. A

4:57

lot of it is really racist and

5:00

really anti-Semitic. He really, really hates

5:02

Jews and says words that

5:04

I don't even feel comfortable saying.

5:08

Extremely derogatory and racist. And Kevin sends a

5:10

picture of his niece. It

5:12

says, quote, the fact that my niece

5:14

is this hot and still hasn't figured

5:16

out how to make money is just

5:19

astonishing. End quote. He had

5:21

just sent him also a picture of

5:23

him with the Hitler mustache with a

5:25

thumbs up right above that. Then he

5:28

says about his niece, quote, like

5:30

bitch, I will all caps will pay

5:32

you for sex. You could be fully

5:34

employed blood relatives even end quote. And

5:37

John responds, which of these

5:39

horrors is your niece? Then

5:41

Kevin says far left. John

5:43

says, damn, she needs to

5:45

be stuffed. Then another conversation

5:47

between the two of them,

5:49

Wednesday, May 25th, 7 20

5:52

p.m. Kevin says, Hey, I just

5:54

want to say one thing. Fuck

5:56

trans people. John responds,

5:58

man, fuck you fool. Then no

6:00

response. They text fuck you back

6:03

and forth quite a bit. Like they call each

6:05

other pricks quite a bit. Also

6:07

John, the school teacher says, quote,

6:09

I also feel like autistic people

6:11

don't get enough shit either. Fuck

6:14

these fools. Learn how to have

6:16

a damn conversation. End quote. Kevin

6:18

even says here Tuesday, September 6, quote,

6:21

sometimes you got to stop a

6:23

show, leave your band members on

6:25

stage, throw a tantrum and chastise

6:27

everyone in the room. Then

6:30

go smoke weed while the band is

6:32

still on stage standing there like idiots.

6:34

End quote. Both of

6:36

their responses are just terrible. He

6:38

was invited to my wedding. He was going to be

6:40

in it. Months before I had

6:43

invited him, we got married October 22. I'm

6:46

seeing this shit in late July, early August.

6:49

I'm right here in bed laying next to

6:51

Alyssa just shaking. It's late at

6:53

night. She hasn't seen it yet because

6:55

she's asleep. By the time rehearsal was

6:57

over, I dropped everyone off and got this phone charged and

6:59

read through this shit. It's probably past midnight. I

7:02

was definitely feeling betrayed. So taken aback. I know

7:04

I need to bring it up with everybody. I

7:06

have all this information that I'm just sitting on. I

7:08

remember not being able to go to bed at all.

7:11

I stayed up basically watching the clock,

7:13

rereading everything, taking screenshots of everything. At

7:16

the time, I wasn't taking them to like

7:18

throw them under the bus publicly, but I

7:20

was smart enough to screenshot this shit from

7:22

my phone. I definitely wanted to show Anthony

7:24

and Drew. It's a real person he was,

7:26

so we could all really make the best

7:28

decision on what to do and how to

7:30

handle it. That way, nobody

7:32

else got suckered or lured into believing his

7:34

bullshit because he was kind of good at

7:36

that, getting out of shit. I

7:39

waited till the morning and then I texted Anthony.

7:41

I told him Kevin left this phone in my

7:43

car and I went through it. It's

7:45

real bad, dude. Like real, real fucking bad. I don't even know

7:47

how to tell you. He's like, what do you mean?

7:49

You got to tell him. I'm like, I'd rather do it

7:51

face to face with you, me, and Drew. That

7:53

way you could see. He's like, no, fuck it. Whatever you send

7:55

me, I know it's real. So I send him

7:58

all that shit and the entire day and me and

8:00

Anthony are just like... Like, holy shit, dude. Here's

8:04

Andrew. I remember seeing

8:06

the texts and the emails that Jimmy had

8:08

shared. Seeing that, I was

8:10

like, this is extremely toxic. You're offending

8:12

people and then defending it by claiming

8:14

comedy. I feel like something needs

8:17

to be figured out here, dude. You're hurting people. When

8:19

I saw all the texts and stuff, part of

8:21

me was completely unshocked. This is how this guy

8:23

talks. It was a bit of an awakening. This

8:25

is just how he treats people. John

8:28

was a guitar player in one

8:30

of Kev's early bands. I

8:32

knew of John in high school. I never played

8:34

in a band with him. I think

8:36

he played guitar one time in the studio on one of the

8:39

Kevin projects that I was in. I always

8:41

thought of him as a more successful musician guy.

8:43

I didn't really have much of a friendship with

8:45

him. He was a teacher. Sometimes

8:47

I'd notice that these are very profane

8:49

things that this guy does and then

8:51

claims that they're jokes. He found

8:54

some sort of gross camaraderie there. It felt

8:56

like he could truly be that version of

8:58

himself. There was an intimacy perhaps in that.

9:01

Here's Jimmy. We had the

9:03

Silver Lake Lounge Show. They just wanted to get

9:05

through the Silver Lake Show and then call it

9:08

quids. Then we had the one that I booked

9:10

with another great band, Trap Girl, which is a

9:12

trans fronted band, who's done so much for us

9:14

and they never had to. They're a bigger band

9:16

out here in LA, especially active in the trans

9:18

punk scene. I was just going to pay out

9:20

Trap Girl or book another band in our place.

9:23

We go into that Silver Lake Show and

9:25

Kevin doesn't say a word to Anthony. It's

9:28

a terrible set for us because Kevin doesn't cue anybody

9:30

in at the right parts. I remember playing just wanting

9:32

to get the hell out of there. Here's

9:36

Anthony. We had a

9:38

big blowout at one of the rehearsals. Kevin

9:40

left his phone in Jimmy's car.

9:43

Jimmy started looking through some

9:45

text conversations. There was this

9:47

one friend that he would

9:49

chat with, John. All

9:52

of the crazy texts that I

9:54

saw from when Jimmy found them,

9:56

they were, I think, exclusively with

9:58

this John guy. guy. He texted

10:00

this guy and he was like, yeah,

10:03

he's refusing to do his job as

10:05

a drummer. And they were just saying

10:07

all this crazy racist misogynistic stuff, comments

10:09

that he made about our wives that

10:11

were inappropriate. He said he wanted to

10:13

murder us at one point. I

10:15

ended up chatting with those guys about

10:17

how mad they were about it. I

10:19

would relay it to Kevin. He would

10:21

not accept where we were coming from.

10:24

This is when it all started falling

10:26

apart. Kevin never owned up

10:28

to anything. He always found a way

10:30

to make himself the victim. It

10:32

came out somewhat quickly and once we knew

10:35

about the text messages, there was no coming

10:37

back from that. The gig was coming up

10:39

soon enough that it couldn't happen if we

10:41

quit or if he fired us. So

10:44

I was like, I heard that you said I'm

10:46

not doing my job as a drummer. We had

10:48

a little back and forth. This

10:50

was actually the last time we spoke. So

10:52

I was like, okay, I'm going to just

10:54

tell him everything that I'm

10:56

upset with and let him know what the

10:58

rest of the band is upset with. I

11:01

tried to communicate clearly. I tried

11:03

not to insult him or curse at him.

11:05

I tried to be professional about it because

11:07

this is maybe the last time I'm ever

11:10

going to try to reason with him. We

11:13

talked for like about an hour. It was all

11:15

text. And at one point he goes,

11:17

you know what? Like you, you're fired. You won't

11:19

be missed. And that was it. And

11:22

so I sent the screenshot of that

11:24

to the rest of the band. I

11:26

believe that was a couple of weeks

11:28

before we were doing this Halloween gig.

11:30

Jimmy had a bunch of songs at

11:33

this point. So we threw a set

11:35

together last minute that didn't involve Kevin

11:38

or his music. We had like three

11:40

or four weeks to put a new

11:42

set together and we played the gig

11:44

under a different name without Kevin. And

11:46

I never heard from him again. The whole

11:48

lifespan of the band from the photo

11:51

shoot the first night before we actually

11:53

rehearsed together to the last show we

11:55

played together was maybe three months. Here's

11:58

Andrew. sit down

12:00

and talk to each other and he was

12:04

like, dude we're trying to do this professionally.

12:06

I've got these other bands I'm in where nobody has to

12:08

come to practice loaded. We

12:16

can understand how to play a show and when

12:18

you show up to a show we all know

12:20

what we're going to perform and people don't get

12:23

in random brawls on the street and leave because

12:25

they're too drunk. This isn't cool man.

12:27

Like I can't do this anymore. So like left again

12:29

because the band fell apart. I think that's

12:31

a big reason why Anthony left. He's no

12:33

nonsense. So he quickly was like, this is

12:35

not a functional artistic relationship. I'm out. Here's

12:38

Jimmy. Kevin tried to

12:40

kick Anthony out. I pretended like I was on Kevin's

12:43

side. I didn't show my card till all this is

12:45

over. I could figure out how to pay the other

12:47

band for the show that was going to be coming

12:49

up in a couple of months and they were like

12:51

helping me with that holding their tempers back especially Anthony.

12:54

Kevin tries to once again isolate Anthony and make

12:56

him the problem. Me and Anthony started talking about

12:58

other ideas and he's like, why don't you just

13:01

take your music and start another band. I started

13:03

coming up with the whole bitch Jagger thing. We

13:05

need to end like this is the last show.

13:08

That's when I made the decision to go full force

13:10

with locking Kevin out of the die

13:12

laughing Instagram account. I changed it to

13:14

bitch Jagger. The band

13:16

name bitch Jagger came about

13:18

partially by Anthony. It was

13:21

him who they hit on that name and

13:23

I was like, that's fucking awesome. That's a

13:25

great name. I started doing research for like

13:28

any tags or handles anybody with

13:30

that banning because this shit is

13:32

gold. I couldn't find

13:34

anything except for one profile. That

13:38

was this old Twitter handle. This

13:40

girl, Erin, she used to go

13:42

by bitch Jagger on Twitter and

13:44

she had this whole crazy story

13:46

on there that really warranted what

13:48

we were doing. She was

13:50

bullied almost to suicide by this

13:53

dude from another punkish band. The

13:56

dude had pretty much made her life a living

13:58

hell and also was. outright

14:00

racist. So it was like

14:02

fate stood for what I thought

14:04

was a bit of satire mixed with

14:06

truth, because mostly all

14:09

our songs are true. And it's

14:11

really just me bitching about shit

14:13

like gatekeeping, sexual abuse, shit like

14:15

that. We talk outright about being a

14:17

deadbeat dad, you know, a lot of these songs

14:19

are stories that hold a lot of truth and

14:21

weight. But they're also meant for

14:23

satire, trolling the whole California beat down

14:26

culture at these hardcore punk shows that

14:28

it's been going on for 20 plus

14:31

years. That's how bitch

14:33

Jagger got started. From Anthony

14:35

and Aaron's old handle from

14:37

like 17 years ago, helped

14:39

us breathe life and get this project going.

14:41

I didn't talk

14:43

to Kevin, I just blocked him on every platform,

14:46

and I left him in the dark. I

14:48

don't even think we brought it up to him. We just had

14:50

all this info. And we just wanted to leave it at that.

14:52

We just knew who he was. And we just

14:54

wanted to be out of the toxic shit. Instead of me having

14:56

to pay like 1000 bucks for this

14:59

next show that I booked going to all the

15:01

other bands, we changed it to bitch Jagger, we

15:03

rehearsed a set drew Anthony, me and

15:05

we got the ex guitarist of die laughing

15:07

our friend Justin, we didn't take like any

15:09

of his material, we wanted nothing to do

15:11

with it. I would do it again. Listeners,

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16:25

not more than a week of him being

16:28

blocked by all of us and locked out.

16:30

We start getting all these reports, texts, and

16:32

DMs sent to us with screenshots of Kevin's

16:34

Twitter rants and new songs that he's writing

16:36

and posting on Bandcamp. His

16:39

new songs have really racial titles. One song's

16:41

called Kikes. One of the song titles was

16:43

The Date of Our Show. It was like

16:45

Death Date 1022 something and it was the

16:48

date of the show that we booked as

16:50

Bitch Jagger without him. So we knew it

16:52

was directed towards us. Kevin ramps

16:54

up his Twitter attacks, trying to

16:56

spin it as we kicked him

16:59

out, we stole his amplifier. Any

17:01

way to make him look like a victim.

17:03

It got to me so much that I

17:05

couldn't let it go. So I wrote a

17:07

song and I recorded it and I put

17:10

it out. The way I put it out

17:12

was through Instagram Stories and it was a

17:14

song all about John and Kevin and all

17:16

the shit they put us through. They kind

17:18

of challenged it and so did their friends.

17:20

Since I kept Dylafin's original Instagram, I still

17:22

had all the followers, which a good portion

17:24

were friends of Kevin from where he used

17:26

to live. As I put this song out, people

17:28

started kind of catching on and I just started

17:31

dropping all the text threads. It

17:33

didn't get to the reaction I thought. I thought

17:35

people would wake the fuck up and be like,

17:37

these two dudes are pieces of shit. But instead

17:39

I immediately just saw the followers drop. People

17:42

leaving, people questioning it and then other people

17:44

verbally attacking me. Kevin fans coming out saying

17:46

like, oh, how dare you? This is victimization.

17:48

It was just like, man, y'all ride for

17:50

your boy so fucking hard. The people who

17:52

dip, dip, but they don't because they still

17:54

watch my stories every day. They're still there

17:56

for the tea. They just don't want to

17:58

give us the satisfaction. of being a follower.

18:01

But also it was real sensitive shit that I

18:03

felt like anyone would want to know. I just

18:05

wanted to make sure everybody knew that they were

18:07

talking about their wives. I'm gonna expose these motherfuckers

18:09

for who they are. I had them

18:11

blocked. He couldn't get a hold of me. The

18:14

one person who did try to reach out

18:16

to us was John Bennett, because his name

18:18

got dropped. Take pity on me, type of

18:20

shit. I'm a man, I made a mistake.

18:22

It's not like one mistake, dude. It's only

18:24

like a lifetime of bad behavior, bro. He

18:26

wanted to quiet me. He wanted his name out of it.

18:29

One of the worst elements about this

18:31

story to me is uncovering how this

18:33

John person is, because he's a teacher

18:35

and he works with kids and he's

18:37

talking about raping children in these text

18:40

messages, to be clear. So

18:42

essentially, he begs for mercy, but his

18:44

name was already outed at that point. Yeah,

18:47

because he's married and his wife's Asian, but even

18:49

like made that a point, you know, my wife's

18:51

Asian, I'm not racist. I'm like, no, you're fucking

18:53

racist. At this point, I was

18:56

in a full spy double agent mode, playing

18:58

good cop bad cop. I was like, okay,

19:00

I'm gonna hear you out. He was

19:02

my liaison between Kevin, so I didn't have

19:04

to talk to him. He basically helped, in

19:06

a way, get off Kevin's hateful music offline,

19:08

all of his social media offline. I was

19:11

telling him, if you want me to keep

19:13

your name out of this, I'll stop posting

19:15

the segments where I call you out. I'm

19:17

not gonna block your name out, but I'll

19:19

try to focus more on Kevin than you.

19:21

He was appreciative and backstabbed Kevin by like

19:23

working with me to convince him to pull

19:26

all his music down to get out of

19:28

LA. We got him to get Kevin to

19:30

wipe everything, band camp, SoundCloud, Apple iTunes Store,

19:32

Amazon, and he did. I don't know if

19:34

it's because John applied the pressure on him.

19:36

He's probably like, you know, if you don't

19:38

do this shit, I'm gonna get divorced. It

19:41

took about a week or two, because when

19:43

you do pull your stuff through your distributor,

19:45

it does take some time, especially through streaming

19:47

sites to come down. All of his social

19:49

media ceased to exist. He like deleted his

19:51

Instagram deleted most of his shit. Apparently still

19:54

has a YouTube up. He does have

19:56

a social media, but that got hacked.

19:58

It's just dead in the air. Yeah. He hasn't had access

20:00

to it since Die Laughing had started. He hasn't been

20:03

on it since then. That was a big thing because

20:05

he had like 4,000 followers and thought he was a

20:07

god and he got locked out of his Instagram. He

20:10

still kept trying to go with this narrative

20:12

that I stole his band and took everything

20:14

from him and stole his amp that he

20:16

did nothing to us. And I'm like,

20:18

all this is right here. This is what you did.

20:20

And he kept going with his bullshit about my sense

20:22

of humor. Like I didn't really mean it. Never

20:25

apologize for anything. From the

20:27

Instagram account, I made a bitch jagger email for

20:29

booking. How long after

20:31

you start sharing the screenshots

20:34

of their text messages before the

20:36

group of women start emailing you?

20:39

Honestly, about a month later, I

20:42

get an email through my booking

20:44

handle. It's an anonymous email from

20:46

someone who goes by Lucia Rising.

20:49

She's representing a group of women. She

20:52

comes to me with how Kevin has

20:54

over the past, I want to say

20:56

like 20 years, been sexually assaulting, stalking,

20:58

harassing via text, mobile and social media.

21:01

He's just been like a plague doing

21:03

this shit his whole life. There's

21:05

been numerous previous band members and people

21:08

that have either slut shamed these women

21:10

or strong armed women into silence or

21:12

straight up scared the shit out of

21:14

them. We end up corresponding

21:17

for almost a month. The

21:22

first email they said, Hi there, a

21:24

friend of mine recently showed me some

21:26

screenshots from Instagram where you blew up

21:28

Kevin Elliott. He's a garbage human being

21:30

who doesn't care for anyone other than

21:32

himself. I'm part of a group of

21:34

women who have been sexually assaulted by

21:36

Kevin in the past. And anytime we

21:38

spoke up about it, his friends came

21:40

to his defense and made us feel like

21:43

it was game over. Thank you for putting the truth

21:45

out there. We have some texts if you want them.

21:48

Thanks again. That's what their initial email

21:50

to me was. And I was just like anything

21:52

I could do to help if you guys want

21:54

to remain anonymous, I have no problem carrying this

21:56

sword for you guys because this has gone to

21:59

a whole fucking level where it's not

22:01

about some banned bullshit. We were

22:03

going back and forth daily through the emails and

22:05

through setting up their own blog. I believe it

22:07

was on WordPress. They didn't get to get too

22:09

far into it because it was only up for

22:12

a little bit before it got shut down. It

22:14

was them just sharing their stories. They were trying

22:16

to offer a place for other women or survivors

22:18

of his bullshit to like come out and vent

22:21

or just feel some peace to come together. I

22:23

remember getting quite a few responses, not just from

22:25

women, but from other people that he had tried

22:27

to start bands with. One of them was a

22:29

drummer. He obviously had a fake handle that said,

22:32

remember me, the drummer. Through all the email

22:34

correspondence with that group, it seemed like these

22:36

were the women of some of Kevin's best

22:38

friends. A lot of these women

22:41

have real trauma and it's been ignored and

22:43

pushed under the rug. It seems like this

22:45

is coming from a much tighter circle. It

22:48

started like that. And

22:50

100 emails later, it turned

22:52

into this whole story about

22:54

how he's been sexually assaulting,

22:56

stalking, abusing via text message,

22:59

phone stalking. There's for sure been

23:01

one rape kit or an instance of a

23:03

rape kit. Two cases have been filed. It

23:05

also involves people who are in their group

23:07

of friends that are married. For sure, he's

23:09

a sexual predator. They gave me consent.

23:11

I post our email correspondence and blacked out the names

23:13

that they want to blacked out. They emailed

23:15

me and then I said my piece on

23:17

it too. I didn't stay anonymous.

23:20

I was all for this is who I

23:22

am. If you have any questions or want

23:24

to vent or share stories, feel free to

23:26

contact me. My name is Jimmy Imperial. Like

23:28

I dealt with this comeback and I want

23:30

you to know that I'm standing with you

23:32

guys. Here's Andrew.

23:35

The band fell apart. I don't know how much

23:37

later, but Bitch Jagger in terms of my recollection

23:39

starts up and Bitch Jagger is loosely the same

23:42

group of guys from before Jimmy comes into the

23:44

band. We have a friend of ours, Justin, for

23:46

a little while who plays in Bitch Jagger. The

23:48

last ever show that we were supposed to play

23:50

with, Kevin, was the first Bitch Jagger show. Still,

23:53

he would be texting me like, I've got these song

23:55

ideas. I've got this and that. And I would just

23:57

not respond. I was still a little bit in communication.

24:00

with him as the band had been dissolving.

24:03

I was like, dude, all this is going on, you

24:05

won't talk to me about anything in terms of our

24:07

relationship, in terms of what's going on, and

24:09

just sending me song ideas. I

24:12

remember seeing Jimmy had taken her

24:14

Instagram account for the band from

24:16

Kevin, and we're all like, yeah, Jim is

24:18

gonna use it for his new band. At

24:20

first it was showing all of these

24:22

emails and text messages. I

24:24

don't know what to make of this. Jim

24:26

reached out and was like, hey, these women

24:29

reached out and they were abused by Kevin.

24:31

There's a long history of abuse. Here's a

24:33

bunch of them reaching out their stories. They've

24:35

asked me to share it. I

24:37

remember I read one or two of the initial

24:39

posts. I was like, what is this, Jim? I

24:42

was kind of glad to be away

24:44

from the band and everything, because it

24:46

was consistently toxic and frustrating. At

24:49

this point, me and Jim, we hadn't come full circle

24:51

in our friendship yet in terms of understanding what each

24:53

other had been through in all this. If

24:55

these are people who are suffering, then I'm glad

24:57

that these stories are being shared. And

25:00

I just didn't know what to make of any of

25:02

it. And then more and more was coming out. I

25:04

don't think these are made up. By the back

25:07

of my mind was always that idea that heaven's

25:09

out there being way more toxic than he is

25:11

to me, and he's continuing to be abusive. It

25:13

seems like people could really have suffered and have

25:15

suffered because of this guy. He

25:17

doesn't want to address even the mild suffering

25:19

he's put us through. It really could be

25:21

that he's this horrific dude in the rest

25:23

of his life. Here's Anthony.

25:27

Jimmy started his band Bitch Jagger, and

25:29

on the Instagram account, he's having this

25:32

saga unfold of outing

25:35

Kevin. I wasn't sure

25:37

how involved to get with that, but

25:39

it seems there were some women that

25:41

reached out to him that Kevin was

25:43

really terrible to. I think

25:46

that he found some people that were really

25:48

happy that the information was getting out there.

25:50

I didn't have access to these text messages,

25:52

so I didn't know what the best way

25:54

to release them would be. He took the

25:57

lead with that, and by that time, he

25:59

was looking. looking for a lineup for the

26:01

band. I was doing my own music. At

26:03

some point, he had to have given Kevin

26:05

his phone back but it just seemed like

26:07

more texts were coming out every

26:09

day. I heard that John

26:11

got really scared when those texts started

26:13

getting posted and he reached out to

26:15

Jimmy. He was trying to get Jimmy

26:17

to stop. Maybe he thought I was

26:19

more involved with that than I was

26:21

but he reached out to me on

26:23

Instagram. He sent me a message and

26:26

he was like, hey, I'm sorry about

26:28

the things that I said about you

26:30

and your wife. I didn't

26:32

even respond to him. I thought it

26:34

would be better for him to be

26:36

sweating it out wondering if I was

26:38

gonna tell people or not. There

26:40

was some legal pushback somewhere

26:43

in between us leaving the band

26:45

and the texts being shared publicly.

26:47

Kevin's dad died and left him

26:50

some money. So, he was able

26:52

to kind of get some legal

26:54

backing. There was a cease

26:56

and desist or some kind of thing

26:58

where Jimmy had to maybe show up

27:01

in court for some of the stuff

27:03

that he was posting. Talking about the

27:05

pattern of behavior, that was the main

27:08

pattern that we were finding was that

27:10

no matter what the situation was, he

27:12

never owned up to anything that

27:15

he was doing that made other people feel

27:17

bad. I'd already left. I had no contact

27:20

with him and I was starting to hear

27:22

about the legal trouble. I was like, I

27:24

don't need this. I'm done with him.

27:26

Jimmy has it under control. Shortly

27:38

After that, Kevin's dad died and some

27:40

people had got back to me trying

27:43

to like tell me to take it

27:45

easy but as you go through those

27:47

emails, I believe you'll see in real

27:49

time at that time, Kevin was still

27:51

talking, still messaging women, vile shit, calling

27:53

them whores. I'm like, no, fuck that.

27:55

We See, his dad died yesterday and

27:57

he's still a day later messaging the

27:59

same. And shit and you still as

28:01

the audacity to do this shit so I was

28:03

just like mouth Like It or Murky brown enough

28:06

you're gonna put fear into these girls to fuck

28:08

with number. You want to be left alone for

28:10

your dad's funeral so you could walk and more

28:12

like know someone had said me his dad's obituary

28:15

info to where the funeral was. I posted it

28:17

on the story saying hey Kevin will see out

28:19

your dad's funeral. Someone. Had apparently

28:21

called in a bomb threat that his dad's

28:23

funeral and I got blamed for that A

28:26

My wife actually did see to I wouldn't

28:28

call a bomb threat in ever precise a

28:30

federal offense and with back and saw that

28:32

only messes with his family not him. I

28:35

think it was really him to called the bomb

28:37

threat and to generate to the for himself

28:39

because of his ammo is always gonna try to

28:42

get the tension diverted away and for people to

28:44

feel sorry for him that way someone else

28:46

can be the bad guy. I.

28:48

Just kept running the stories posting on which eventually

28:50

led to him having to take out a restraining

28:52

order on me. So I got served and in

28:54

there. It's like stuff about a bomb threat and

28:56

I posted the receivers so people could know I

28:58

just how far the ship was going. He was

29:01

pushing for me to not be able to like

29:03

post anything on the internet about him anymore. He

29:05

really was try to stop me from running his

29:07

name more and more. I chose to not even

29:09

go to the hearing at that point. I wanted

29:11

nothing to do with him. I made the decision

29:13

to just say fuck it can. I could have

29:15

filed a go through the tool but I didn't

29:18

need. To the to the.away bigger thing, I'm

29:20

getting messages at this time from these women

29:22

from other people now starting to get support

29:24

right on gain support from other people from

29:26

Riverside. you're like hey man I'm know Kevin

29:28

this long as he is a piece of

29:30

shit and allows people to move on. Jon

29:32

Benet family has really hard to taken him

29:34

except and have known this person for so

29:36

long and have worked with is a colleague

29:38

of mine. Couldn't imagine him talking like this.

29:41

It. Was still in a lot better than it was

29:43

a month prior. To where people are challenging the

29:45

truth of it, I got some apologies like sorry

29:47

for doubting Huge is a lot to taken. Once.

29:49

the bombs are thinking about the girls shut

29:52

down the wordpress blog they got scared through

29:54

threats have been sued i think they were

29:56

just scared and general because they didn't know

29:58

what was going on They deleted

30:00

their email handle and it just

30:03

went dark all correspondence stopped. This

30:05

is as far as I got it The story's

30:07

out there. I just don't see him ever coming

30:09

to terms with it. Definitely not about the rape

30:12

Have you spoken sense? No,

30:15

but we did run into each other I didn't

30:17

say a word to him because I still go

30:19

to the building he lives in my base player

30:22

lives in the same Apartment unit I go there

30:24

a lot to record Yeah, we ran into each

30:26

other in the lobby and he had a handle

30:28

of some cheap ass vodka It would have been

30:31

the ideal moment to just light him up But

30:33

I just looked at him and he looked at

30:35

me and give me this like really creepy smile

30:38

and I kept walking I just chose not to do

30:40

anything. I was able to

30:42

take away what he loved. He can never

30:44

be a rock star You can never go

30:47

public. You can't have social media at least

30:49

not as wide as he wants You can't

30:51

put up music anymore without us finding it

30:53

and if we find it we'll get out

30:55

of the proper way It was taken away

30:57

his ability to harass people on the internet.

31:00

It was important to me I'm

31:02

glad that they were able to

31:04

reach out to you and at least

31:06

be validated through that experience You

31:09

offer them nothing but support every step of

31:11

the way, which I really appreciate I'm

31:14

not kidding. Thank you. I feel like I Had

31:17

to do I was friends with this guy and he

31:19

heard a lot of people I felt

31:21

bad Especially for this group of people because

31:23

they were still being bullied No one believed

31:26

them if you go and read the through

31:28

the emails He still to

31:30

that day had people pushing these women or

31:32

like threatening them denying them of their fucking

31:34

pain and trauma And that's so fucked up

31:37

these women to this day don't feel safe

31:40

It really seemed like they wanted it to get to

31:42

the highest plateau So they could feel safe about coming

31:44

out or sharing their stories in a sense

31:47

I was listening to your podcast that work at

31:49

my lonely mechanic job And it's what got me

31:51

through the day and I was thinking like man.

31:54

This is the perfect platform for these women I

31:56

didn't want to be seen as just another fucking

31:58

band member who let this because

32:00

it's a toxic circle and it's a pattern. He's

32:03

done it for the last 10 years. Here's

32:07

Andrew. A band that

32:09

I was in was Kevin which was like a 10 plus

32:11

year thing. It was a very short period of time where

32:13

it wasn't a frustration. The people in my life were always

32:15

like, why do you put up with it? And it was

32:17

almost like, it was part of my identification of wanting to

32:19

be an artist, wanting to stay a musician. I'm like, for

32:22

a long time, it was almost an obligation. Now

32:24

I guess it's been a year and a half,

32:26

two years, we're out of it. We're all doing

32:28

our own projects and everything is blooming. It makes

32:31

sense. A lot of the criticism that was told

32:33

to me in the past, it was never a

32:35

functional communication and it was always pretty one-sided in

32:37

terms of getting his needs met. It

32:39

started with me feeling antagonistic towards Jimmy, continued

32:41

that way until the whole fracture happened. But

32:43

I do want to get on the record

32:45

that now and after all of the blow-up,

32:47

Jimmy has turned out to be an actual

32:49

friend and a cool guy that I enjoy

32:51

supporting and he supports my shit as much

32:53

as he can as well. And so it's

32:55

like, in a way, my getting sour on

32:57

the Kevin relationship clouded my vision a little

32:59

bit of Jim and made me learn to

33:01

not be such an asshole. None of us

33:03

spoke to each other except for in Contagious

33:05

to the Band and we all kind of

33:07

had a frustration around Kevin that we didn't

33:10

really communicate to each other. And so

33:12

I projected shit on Jim. Anthony

33:14

and Jim have been inspirations to me because it's

33:16

like, now we're all able to learn from each

33:18

other and work together. So I'm still

33:21

working with Anthony. Jim and

33:23

I still are creatively going and helping each

33:25

other. We have some future plans to work

33:28

together. They're all good guys except

33:30

for Kevin, but it took that asshole to

33:32

link us together. It's unfortunate that

33:34

he is not great, but some great

33:36

relationships came out of it. There's

33:39

some sort of a Kevin orbit with like

33:41

a lot of these bands and creators. Seems

33:43

like they're all flowering much more than they

33:46

were when they were Kevin-centric. It's

33:48

my day job. I'm just a substitute teacher right

33:50

now. I'll have a ukulele. I'll

33:52

do as much social art interactive roleplay

33:54

stuff. I'd love to pay the art

33:56

bills and the rent bills. you

34:00

hope that listeners will get out of hearing

34:02

this story? This is

34:04

like the Jiminy Cricket answer, but if I

34:06

had made a more conscious decision about some

34:08

of the things that I was seeing just

34:11

in my own experience with this guy, if

34:13

I had taken earlier steps to just set

34:15

my own boundaries and figure out what I

34:17

wanted my relationships and communication to look like,

34:20

I just would have learned lessons maybe quicker than they

34:22

took for me to learn. Listen to

34:24

yourself and be as present and aware

34:26

as you can, when stuff affects you,

34:28

don't let it roll off, process it.

34:31

I suppose that some people can have

34:34

stories that they felt have been not

34:36

heard and hidden that I guess need

34:38

to be heard. And it's the art

34:40

scene. It's like the band scene where

34:42

a bunch of this toxic stuff could

34:44

have been happening. I feel like these

34:47

people are my family. And so to

34:49

like introduce predatory behavior or anything into

34:51

those situations, into those communities feels like

34:53

the worst thing I could imagine if

34:55

these stories and people's experiences can

34:58

be heard then hopefully these spaces where people should

35:00

be able to like express themselves and feel comfortable

35:02

can be a little more comfortable because

35:04

art's a vulnerable thing. It sucks to have

35:06

to mix your vulnerability in an area where

35:08

there might be predators. Sharing the story can

35:11

eliminate that on some level, creating safer spaces

35:13

for people to be themselves and to create.

35:16

Here's Anthony. Hopefully

35:19

people know to stay away from Kevin

35:21

Elliott in any capacity, creative

35:23

or otherwise. Maybe some of

35:25

the stories we've told will help

35:27

people pick up on certain patterns in

35:29

other people's behavior that maybe are in

35:32

their lives so they can avoid them.

35:34

Anyone who had any involvement with

35:37

Kevin experienced some kind of pretty

35:39

much all negative with him. Other

35:41

people dealt with worse things than we did

35:44

but it seems like there's almost nobody in

35:46

his life besides this John guy that had

35:48

a positive image of him. Hopefully they stay

35:50

away from him and hopefully they take something

35:52

away from our stories that helps them stay

35:54

away from similar people. Thank

35:57

you so much for your time and your willingness

35:59

to share. there. I

36:02

hope that the women who emailed me hear this

36:04

story and know that I took it as far

36:06

as I could get it. Really

36:08

just want them to feel like they have a place

36:10

now to come to if they want to. I

36:13

just want them to know that it is from

36:15

the heart. This was never some kind of like

36:17

publicity thing if anybody ever thought that. This

36:19

was really just about trying to set something

36:22

right, shed light onto what's happening and it's

36:24

still going on in our local music scene.

36:26

I mean this is a problem everywhere, not

36:28

just music. I just want

36:30

this kind of shit to open people's eyes

36:32

and ears. If they see somebody

36:35

doing some fucked up shit, no matter how

36:37

good of a friend they are, hold their

36:39

homies accountable. If you see someone acting a

36:41

certain way, pull them aside, check them and

36:43

if not, hold them accountable. Don't be afraid

36:45

to do the right thing. When

36:47

you just turn your cheek, it allows it to keep going

36:49

and this is something that has been going on for like

36:52

20 years. Not just with

36:54

die laughing and bitch jagger and these

36:56

women but this is a pattern of

36:58

behavior that's continued and it has been

37:00

allowed. I really

37:02

appreciate you submitting the story and showing

37:04

up for the survivors and every email

37:06

that you sent back trying to support

37:09

them and share in a way that

37:11

they requested and still trying to spread

37:13

the word and I really appreciate that.

37:15

I thank you so much for being

37:18

willing to share. Thank

37:20

you too for picking up the story. Thank

37:22

you for raising awareness and giving people a

37:24

platform to speak on their trauma in a

37:26

safe spot. I think it's fucking awesome

37:28

because you're the one really holding the sword for

37:31

everybody. Next

37:38

time on Something Was Wrong. When

37:45

we were dating, he had two phones

37:47

which obviously was a little suspicious. I'm

37:49

sure it had a lot to do with the drugs and

37:51

with the cheating. The

37:55

biggest thing was that I married one of his friends

37:57

so I felt obligated to keep

37:59

the peace. This

38:03

Twitter account, someone had

38:05

started it because they were

38:07

hearing a lot of rumors

38:10

about him abusing sex workers.

38:14

People that grew up with him, they don't even know who

38:16

he is and they're mourning a friend

38:19

that they had who has turned into

38:21

a complete monster. Thank

38:26

you so much for listening. Until

38:28

next time, stay safe, friends. Something

38:32

Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle

38:34

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38:37

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