Diplo has denied recent sexual misconduct claims made against him, alleging the accuser is a “stalker” trying to “extort” him.
The EDM icon – real name Thomas Wesley Pentz- addressed the allegations in a lengthy statement after Buzzfeed News reported that the Los Angeles city attorney was considering criminal charges against him following a police investigation into alleged an “invasion of privacy” and “intentionally giving someone a sexually transmitted infection.”
“I will keep this story easy to read because I know the Internet has a short attention span and it was my goal to never address a stalker… I will refer to her as ‘SA’”, began Pentz on an Instagram post.
“She (SA) was an obsessed fan of mine, and after I relinquished all contact with her, it appears that her only purpose in life has been to disrupt my work, my business, harass me and my close friends and attack me and threaten my family.”
The DJ went on to admit that the pair had a brief sexual encounter but stressed that “to be clear, SA was not a minor when I had conversations or sexual intercourse with her,” going on to note that the two “exchanged texts for a few months”.
“[…] There was small talk, sexual flirting, she would send me pics and videos.
“Eventually it got too much to handle and I stopped contact with her when I realized she had started to become obsessed with me. It began as a nightmare of almost three years of her harassing and threatening me and my family and friends.”
The post goes on to show hundreds of supposed messages from the woman in question before the DJ continued to describe another racey encounter involving the woman and some friends while alleging SA continued to harass him and other women in his life.
“I didn’t remember who she was because, I’ll be honest, I meet a lot of girls in my work, which I’ve never denied,” he said. “But we began to speak again and she had flown to Las Vegas to go to one of my shows and said she had a group of friends that wanted to hook up.
“We all ended up having sex that night,” he continued, before claiming that “SA began to post on websites about our experience”.
“She started to follow my family members, the mothers of my children, and girls I would comment on, on Instagram. I didn’t know this until a year later when a private investigator found they were all coming from SA’s location under many names.”
The woman has accused Diplo of sharing explicit videos of the woman without her consent, as well as intentionally infecting her with chlamydia.
The accused also won a temporary restraining order against the DJ last year after she accused him of revenge pon in the wake of an explicit photo of her surfaced online.
Pentz also sought a restraining order against her at the time, accusing her of harassment. You can read all about it at TMZ. Check out the full statement below.
If you or anyone you know is experiencing sexual assault or abuse, contact Respect for support on 1800 737 732.
