Ethel Cain Addresses Racism Allegations

Ethel Cain Apologizes for Past Racist Comments, Addresses Other Allegations in New Statement

Hayden Anhedönia—AKA Ethel Cain—has addressed allegations of racism and inappropriate behavior after screenshots of past tweets and Curious Cat answers resurfaced on social media this week. In a statement shared on a Googe Doc this afternoon, Cain took accountability for her actions while also clarifying some allegations that she said were fabricated.

A screenshot from Q&A social media platform Curious Cat showed that in November 2017, someone anonymously asked Cain if she had ever said the n-word before. She responded, “in all honesty yes lmao.” In a different Curious Cat screenshot from January 2018, someone commented, “LMAOOOO now you mocking hispanic people,” to which she replied, “build that wall!” A photo of a homemade t-shirt that read “LEGALIZE INCEST” also surfaced. It then led to other accusations, including that a drawing Cain made as a teen of a BDSM Chibi was “child pornography.”

In her statement, Cain acknowledged that while making the incriminating posts at 19 years old, she was “entirely aware” of what she was writing online. “I spent my later high-school years being extremely progressive and ‘SJW’ as they called it at the time, as a way to reject the indoctrination of my environment and rebel against the prejudice, hatred, and ignorance of the culture I grew up in,” she explained. “After moving out of my parents’ house, I fell into a subculture online that prioritized garnering attention at all costs. I flip-flopped again, rejecting all notions of my former ‘cringe SJW’ behavior and intended to be as inflammatory and controversial as possible. I would have said (and usually did say) anything, about anyone, to gain attention and ultimately just make my friends laugh.”

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She noted that she has a dry and “extremely sarcastic” sense of humor that didn’t translate well out of context, and at the time of having an internet presence, she wasn’t aware of the level of stardom she would go on to achieve. Cain acknowledged that when it comes to her racist jokes, there is “no place for excuses in this matter,” as she is white and while she can “take accountability” for her actions, she will never be able to “fully understand the way it feels to be on the receiving end of them.”

Cain apologized for her actions, writing, “All I can say is that I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, to anyone who read it then and to anyone reading it now. Any way you feel about me moving forward is valid.” She added that she looks back at this period of her life “shamefully,” and has done her best to “bury it” as she feels “strongly that no good can come from it.”

While Cain apologized for her faults and took accountability for her wrongdoing, she also pointed out that her past posts resurfacing are “not the actions of a well-meaning individual concerned by something they discovered easily and casually on the internet.” Instead, Cain believes these screenshots were “obtained through extensive digging, hacking, and cooperative effort amongst a group of individuals who do not care who else is hurt by witnessing this media as long as [she is] ultimately hurt the worst in the end.”

She divulged that personal social media accounts have been hacked and her family has been doxxed and harassed; photos of herself as a minor and “intimate details” of her past have also been shared without her consent. “I am an adult and I can take accountability for my actions, but this goes beyond accountability,” she wrote.

Speaking about the accusation of creating cartoon child pornography, Cain said, “I am going to be brief about this because this is quite possibly one of the most serious offenses I can fathom. I had three individual characters that I drew often from the ages of 18-20, each character being a different age in that bracket. The character of Teddy, who was 19, was a hypersexual character born out of my own struggles with sexual trauma and assault.”

She explained that at the time of drawing it, she had “just been raped by a man” twice her age weeks before. “The way I processed this was the opposite way I thought rape victims were supposed to behave, as I leaned into sadomasochism and became fixated on the event and thought that somehow sexualizing it in a way I could control or desire would make it more bearable, as though I wanted it,” she continued.

Read Ethel Cain’s statement in full below.

To start things off, I want to address the Twitter/curiouscat screenshots. That was my account and they were my words. I was 19 and I was entirely aware of what I was saying and that was why I said it. I spent my later high-school years being extremely progressive and “SJW” as they called it at the time, as a way to reject the indoctrination of my environment and rebel against the prejudice, hatred, and ignorance of the culture I grew up in. After moving out of my parents’ house, I fell into a subculture online that prioritized garnering attention at all costs. I flip-flopped again, rejecting all notions of my former “cringe SJW” behavior and intended to be as inflammatory and controversial as possible. I would have said (and usually did say) anything, about anyone, to gain attention and ultimately just make my friends laugh.

I could tell you that I had no idea at the time the platform I would have in the future, or tell you I just have a dry and extremely sarcastic sense of humor, or make any other kind of excuse, but there’s no place for excuses in this matter. At the end of the day I am white, so while I can take accountability for my actions, there’s no way for me to fully understand the way it feels to be on the receiving end of them. All I can say is that I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, to anyone who read it then and to anyone reading it now. Any way you feel about me moving forward is valid.

This was a chapter of my life I look back at shamefully. I am not proud of my actions, and I have done my best to bury it as I feel strongly that no good can come from it. As I move forward through my life, I aim to use my platform for good, for change, and for progress. I believe it’s important to atone not through words alone, but through actions. All this being said; all of these things resurfacing are not the actions of a well-meaning individual concerned by something they discovered easily and casually on the internet. These are screenshots obtained through extensive digging, hacking, and cooperative effort amongst a group of individuals who do not care who else is hurt by witnessing this media as long as I am ultimately hurt the worst in the end. I’ve known that all of these separate pieces of my past have been found and hoarded over the past couple years as I’ve been tipped off in various ways. This massive smear campaign has been a long time in the making, waiting for the right moment to be unleashed, and now it finally has.

Again, there is no justice sought by this group. All they crave is the complete emotional destruction of me as a person. Personal accounts of mine have been hacked, my family has been doxxed and harassed, photos of me as a child and intimate details of my past have been passed around for fun. I am an adult and I can take accountability for my actions, but this goes beyond accountability. The things I have seen said about me in the past few days, the things my friends and family have seen, are atrocious and disgusting. I’m no stranger to a lot of the vitriol as I’ve seen it before in the corners of the internet where it hides, but to see it paraded so visibly on such a wide scale now amongst so many people willing to entertain it is pure maliciousness of the highest degree. I ask that you imagine how you would feel having all your worst mistakes dredged up from the depths and displayed for all the world to pick apart. Despite my irritation at having to address some of these things at all, I will address the allegations in all their varying degrees of embarrassing ridiculousness.

1. Regarding the topic of incest in my artwork, it’s a layered experience. I have always been interested in creating art centered around the taboo. Much like all the other topics explored in my work, it was just another part of human nature I wrote about it. However, with specific instances such as my hand drawn t-shirt (which was a ridiculous item I made in my bedroom that was never intended to be and never has been any kind of merch distributed to other people, just to clear that one up), at the time I was still of a somewhat inflammatory mindset and fully made that t-shirt to be a crude joke to garner attention. I had even been labeled “incest girl” on Twitter in that time period, I suppose because the people I surrounded myself with knew I was a white girl from the bible belt, and that was their joke that I leaned into. As an artist with a fanbase comprised of many victims of sexual/emotional abuse of an incestuous nature who find comfort in my music because of it, I understand how painful this could be. I apologize deeply if my actions have caused you any further grief and if I have let you down. I do want to be clear, however, that I have never fetishized it. Rather, as a lonely and confused child I had my own complicated personal struggles with the concept during puberty (in a hypothetical manner, not involving anyone in my actual family). I have since untangled these feelings and I now understand their root. While sometimes the topic of incest may get intermingled on a song with my own experiences of sexual abuse or my own familial traumas, I have never and would never fetishize such a sensitive subject. All of these topics I’m going to discuss have carried the brand of “fetish” as this is a common talking point for the transphobic brigade of individuals attacking me.

2. Regarding the topic of drawn child pornography, based off of one drawing I made at 19 years old. I am going to be brief about this because this is quite possibly one of the most serious offenses I can fathom. I had three individual characters that I drew often from the ages of 18-20, each character being a different age in that bracket. The character of Teddy, who was 19, was a hypersexual character born out of my own struggles with sexual trauma and assault. At the time of that drawing, I had just been raped by a man twice my age weeks before. The way I processed this was the opposite way I thought rape victims were supposed to behave, as I leaned into sadomasochism and became fixated on the event and thought that somehow sexualizing it in a way I could control or desire would make it more bearable, as though I wanted it. This was reflected in my artwork. All other details aside, the character was the same age I was and had the same extremely slender body type I had at the time. I utilized a more cartoonish-hybrid style for my characters occasionally as was the norm for artwork in my scene on the internet around that time, but the character was still of the same legal age I was and that has always been the case. I will not be discussing this topic again.

3. Regarding the topic of sexual abuse towards animals, because yes that is somehow also an accusation against me. I was at a Fourth of July party out in the sticks at a friend’s house and the majority of us were topless because we could be. My friend’s dog hopped in the truck with me and I messed with him by putting him in a headlock for a few seconds while a friend took a picture. My bare breast was squished against his face for all of two seconds. I can’t believe I’m even addressing this.

4. Regarding the missing poster included in the promotional materials of Preacher’s Daughter. I made that poster at 3am in a rush and was googling “1990s missing poster” looking for any kind of template to use that would seem period accurate for the character. I picked that one out of all the search results because it was in the yellowish color palette and had a font/visual language that I thought would match the other visuals for the album. I absolutely should have done my research on the poster I chose, and I understand how this could be hurtful and damaging to the family of that child. I insist that this was nowhere close to my intention by using it. Hindsight is 20/20 and I would not be so careless in that regard again. However, the accusations of me fetishizing the kidnapping and murder of a child are beyond egregious and ridiculous.

5. Regarding the topic of misogyny and “fetishization of the female experience”. Cis women are not the only people capable of being victims of sexual assault. They are not the only people capable of being abused, kidnapped, or murdered. To posture that I have never been harmed in my life as a child or an adult trans woman, or that fearing the very real possibility of being harmed again, kidnapped, or killed as a trans woman is somehow a “fetish”, is entirely willfully ignorant and hateful. No one knows what I have been through in my personal life, and I feel zero need to share it with the world because it’s no one’s business but mine. You can debate the ethics of artistic expression until you’re blue in the face but you cannot tell me what I have experienced and how to process that because you simply were not there and you do not know me. Preacher’s Daughter is a deeply personal story to me, born from my traumas and deepest fears. If it reads as a fetish to you, then that is your problem and not mine.

There is so much ridiculous material being used to slander me right now, I don’t even know if this addresses every “controversy”. To try and sum everything up, no I am not a violent misogynist fetishizing the “female experience”. No I am not the creator of child pornography, nor am I a pedophile, a zoophile, or a porn-addicted incest fetishist. I urge you to recognize the patterns of a transphobic/otherwise targeted smear campaign, especially in this political day and age. This information was hoarded until the perfect moment arose to unleash it. In this case, a baseless attempt to assassinate my boyfriend’s character became the catalyst. He will address these claims in his own time on his own terms and I support him wholeheartedly. This entire situation is negligent, sensationalized, and extremely dangerous not only for myself but for all my loved ones. Of course this was the specific intention of the perpetrators, but I want to make that fact very clear for those who have gotten caught up in it. I am responsible for my actions and taking accountability for the mistakes I have made in the past, but everything beyond that is brutal slander, targeted harassment, and in the words of my own attackers, bullying with the end goal of me killing myself. My team and I are taking this matter seriously and are pursuing legal recourse under the fullest extent of the law.

To everyone partaking in this expecting me to address my racist statements in the past, you are completely valid. This statement cannot be everything, but I hope it is a start.

To everyone partaking in this beyond that, as if it is simply “discourse” or “drama”, I hope you are deeply ashamed of yourself. This is none of those things, but instead an attack on me as a person. Part of the reason I am even running the risk of accelerating this harassment and jeopardizing my own safety and the safety of my friends and family to make this statement is because I see this situation for exactly what it is, and I need all of you to see it this way as well. This is a common tactic used against minorities, specifically trans people in this case, with no goal besides the destruction of an individual. I am not the only person this has happened to by any means and I will not be the last person it happens to either. I will not allow this smear campaign to silence me in the same way I have not allowed any of their previous attempts to silence me. Again, in this day and age, just as I must be diligent with my voice and my actions, you share the same responsibility.

Thank you for reading,
Hayden

Ethel Cain Apologizes for Past Racist Comments, Addresses Other Allegations in New Statement