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Artist News Releases
Shamir pulls new video following abuse allegations against director
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 3 November 2017
Shamir has pulled the video for his latest single ‘Straight Boy’, after allegations of sexual abuse against its director surfaced.
The video explored the song’s key theme, looking at the social pressures to conform to an identity, with Shamir performing the song against a plain background, being interchanged with actor and director Ryan Carpenter mimicking him.
Announcing his decision on Twitter, the musician said: “So I had to take down the ‘Straight Boy’ video because as it turns out, the actor and director in the video is an abuser. I know, the irony. Turns out you can’t even find [a cisgender, heterosexual] guy that’s not a shitty person to even play a shitty person. And above all I’m sorry to the survivors and thank y’all for letting me know”.
Questioned further about his decision by Spin, Shamir said that allegations had emerged after he originally posted the video on YouTube. He approached Carpenter about the claims, but that discussion didn’t clear the matter up for him.
He went on: “I found out through a disturbing comment left on the video, so I immediately just took it down. I do believe it to be true, because a while back he told me a girl accused him of abuse in college, he denied it and said it was all chalked up to just a misunderstanding. I took the info at face value because his friend from college concurred”.
“I didn’t know his reputation back in Florida because we met in Brooklyn and would just see each other either out there or in Philly”, he continued. “So when I saw the comment my heart dropped to my stomach. Obviously I approached him about it, and he left me with little to no explanation or piece of mind, and even seemed quite nonchalant about it, so I told him I’m taking it down and did so immediately”.
Yesterday afternoon, Shamir posted a new video for the song which he shot himself, featuring him performing an acoustic version. Watch that here: