Arcade Fire's Win Butler has been accused of “emotionally manipulative” behavior by a fifth person. According to Pitchfork, Butler has admitted to “consensual” affaris but insisted, “I have never touched a woman against her will, and any implication that I have is simply false. I vehemently deny any suggestion that I forced myself on a woman or demanded sexual favors. That simply, and unequivocally, never happened.”
Pitchfork gave the new accuser the pseudonym “Sabina.” Sabina said that she began an on and off three year relationship with Butler in the summer of 2015 when she was 22 and working as a waitress in Montreal. Sabina says that after texting and meeting up, the two had sex for the first time in his Montreal studio space.
She said, “In general, it was an abusive dynamic. It was really aggressive and I felt like I just had to do what he said. I was not really comfortable with some of the things he was asking me to do, but doing them anyway. And that is ultimately dehumanizing.”
Pitchfork reported that Sabina “didn’t overtly say no or otherwise try to stop him” but that she considers the encounters to have been not clearly consensual. She explained, “I think he genuinely wouldn’t know if something was consensual or not.”
Sabina said that Butler would send her unprompted explicit photographs of himself and asked her to do the same. Sabina said that she dated him until 2018 after she decided that she “didn’t feel any kind of connection to him.”
Butler's wife Regine Chassigne released a statement, saying, “I know what is in his heart, and I know he has never, and would never, touch a woman without her consent and I am certain he never did. He has lost his way and he has found his way back. I love him and love the life we have created together.”