Allegations against Between The Buried And Me guitarist Dustie Waring surfaced earlier today via an anonymous user on Reddit, who claimed that she was raped and impregnated by Waring while drunk. MetalSucks reached out to Waring, whose legal representation provided a comment saying "Dustie Waring of BTBAM/Glass Casket is aware of the allegations and working on a statement that is both sensitive to victims of sexual assault but also sufficiently communicates their adamant denial of these allegations."
Now Between The Buried And Me has offered a brief comment, saying that Waring will not be joining them on their upcoming tours. In the post, Between The Buried And Me stated "Dustie Waring will not be performing on the Parallax 2: Future Sequence Tour. We will have a session guitarist filling in at all scheduled dates." No further information is yet available regarding Waring's standing with the band, but we'll b sure to keep everyone updated.
Waring has issued a statement in an Instagram story, saying "I have recently been made aware of allegations from 5 years ago which were posted this weekend on Reddit. I do not condone non-consensual sex and have never acted without consent in any part of my private life or maliciously taken advantage of anyone.
"These allegations have come as a complete shock, having dedicated my life to being of service to people that need help in many forms of recovery. I will therefore be taking some time to spend with my family to focus on maintaining my several years of sobriety which will include sitting out the Parallax II tour.
"With the exception of this statement, I will be dealing with this matter privately with my bandmates and discussing any future action with my lawyer in order to protect myself and my family."
In a lengthy Reddit post which you can read in full below, Waring has been accused of raping and impregnating a drunk woman. The allegations continue that the woman aborted the child and has been dealing with the PTSD and emotional fallout ever since. The allegations include screenshots of messages and are a very difficult read.
"I need to come forward about something that I've been too afraid to tell the world," begins the post. "It has been nearly 5 years since this incident occurred. I've been too scared to come forward and speak my truth.
"Trigger warning: r*pe.
"Dustie Waring, a monster who is 12 years my senior, raped and impregnated me.
"If you know who I am, please, don't let my identity get out. I'm so scared.
"I've been telling myself that there will be more victims if I don't come forward. I've been blaming myself for what happened. I felt like I could have done more to prevent it, but I know I couldn't have. It wasn't my fault. I'm sick and tired of blaming myself. It wasn't my fault. It was Dustie Waring's.
"The only results I want going forward is getting closure and also to create a safe space for other potential victims to come forward if they unfortunately exist.
"I need to come forward with my story.
"Myself and a few friends had been day-drinking before a BTBAM show. We met up for lunch and started drinking then, we were all pretty drunk when we got around to going to the show. I can't hide when I'm drunk at all, I was the last person to provide my ticket to be let into the venue. The security could see that I was visibly drunk and wouldn't let me into the venue.
"One of my friends stayed with me. I was out of cash and didn't have my card so we went to the supermarket together. They bought me some food in an attempt to sober me up a bit. We waited for the show to end at a nearby bar. Our other friends met us there after the show and we continued drinking. When that bar closed we went to another one a few doors down. We sat upstairs and the bar/service area was downstairs. At this point I was very drunk, once again.
"One of my friends said he had spotted Dustie Waring downstairs. From what I remember, I went to say hi and let him know how much I admire him. I explained that I missed his show because I was too drunk. After chatting for a while, he followed me on Instagram. Then I went upstairs and told my friends I went to say hi, they were all really excited for me but too shy to say hi themselves. I was really excited so I went back down to talk some more.
"At this point, my memory starts to fade. I remember he bought me a lot of shots. I remember him kissing me, and doing more shots. I remember an altercation between Dustie and one of my friends. For the sake of anonymity, I'll call that friend R. I remember doing more shots and Dustie kissing me some more. Then I black out. I woke up at home in my bed, incredibly hungover. I was still wearing the clothes from last night but parts of my body hurt. I had a shower, during that I saw some bruises on my hips and wrists. I assume I fell over at some point but that wouldn't explain why my vagina hurt.
"I go to get some water and I see R waking up on my sofa. I asked R what happened. He said he got a taxi home with me because he was concerned about how drunk I was. At the time I had only vaguely remembered kissing Dustie since I had just woken up from my black out. I asked R if that happened, and he confirmed, saying that Dustie had been 'creeping on you all night'.
"He asked me what I remember of the night before and I told him the very small amount that I remembered. I asked if there was a fight and he said he was ready to beat the shit out of Dustie for feeding me alcohol when I was beyond drunk, persistently making sexual advances on me and taking advantage of me. R said he went to cool off after yelling at Dustie and talked to our friends about it. When R came back downstairs to get me he couldn't find me or Dustie. R started panicking, then went to ask my friends what to do, but I turned up after a while. R said that I could barely stand up or string a sentence together so he ordered us a taxi to my house.
"I checked my phone and Dustie messaged me. We had a quick chat about what happened and he helped fill in some blanks. I've uploaded screenshots of our conversation. In those texts he confirms that no condom was used, confirms that he penetrated me, tells me to 'live a little' and insists there was no altercation.
"A few weeks later I noticed my period still hadn't come. I did a pregnancy test and found out that I was pregnant. I terminated the pregnancy when I found out.
"It took me a few months to truly process and understand what happened. I was a huge BTBAM fan and I respected Dustie so much. I just wanted to meet one of my idols and he saw that as an opportunity to ensure I was blackout drunk, and completely take advantage of me. I've blamed myself for so long. I'm tired of this haunting me. It nearly killed me. I appreciate anyone who has read this far – if there are any other victims, please know that it is not your fault.
"I've recently sought out therapy and been diagnosed with PTSD following what happened. With that, and the fact that the few people I've confided in so far believed me, I feel empowered to finally post this."
