Prolific American lo-fi musician Ariel Pink has seen plenty of publicity in recent years for his unique style of music. However, ahead of Ariel Pink’s trip to Australia for Melbourne Music Week next month, the indie muso has addressed a series of claims made against him that criticised his “gross” onstage behaviour.

Three days ago, a Reddit user took to the website to discuss their experience at Ariel Pink’s recent performance in San Francisco. “Man, I saw Ariel Pink last night in SF for the first time and it was a huge bummer, possibly turning me off from him forever,” the post began. “I went with my SO who is a huge fan of the whole WMF scene and even he’s uncomfortable enjoying Ariel now.”

The user went on to describe how Ariel Pink treated his girlfriend and bandmate Charlotte Ercoli “like a piece of meat.” Describing how he “grabbed her ankle and wouldn’t let her go, attempting to push her into the crowd which she was clearly uncomfortable with.” Further claims about his behaviour were made, and it was made rather clear that Pink’s performance was uncomfortable, at best. “A ton of people also said fuck this and walked out,” the user noted.

As Stereogum notes, Ariel Pink then took to Twitter in order “touch base” with fans and address these claims. Throughout a series of Tweets, Pink notes that he “got very drunk and overdid everything”, “wrecked [his] vocal chords”, and “managed (to) offend with my antics”, before making it clear that he believed his actions were problematic, stating “I’m tone deaf and not sensitive enough to the real plight of women these days. my behavior onstage was gross and I can’t defend it.”

While many fans online were further angered by his comments on the incident, others were quick to praise him for openness, with many coming to his defence, including his own girlfriend, and supposed victim of the whole scenario, bandmate Charlotte Ercoli.

Taking to Twitter, Ercoli criticsed those who were judging Ariel Pink for his actions. “Wow. Turns out a girl can’t have fun with her boyfriend on stage without being victimized by feminists,” she wrote. “Feminists r trying to victimize me for consensually wrestling/manhandling my bf on stage. It’s the oppression olympics. Im not competing.”

“Don’t feel bad for me. Feel bad for my boyfriend.”

In response to her final Tweet in which she referred to a “hit piece” from music publication Pitchfork, she sent the website a statement in which she made it clear that they were just two people having fun, with nothing untoward occurring.

“Ariel and I have been together for years. We are just two Jewish guys up there roasting each other. In this political climate people are very sensitive. And for good reasons that we stand by,” she wrote.

“I am sorry if we made anyone uncomfortable but I can surely report it’s all in good fun on our end and we were just feeling ‘a little keyed up’/rowdy to be kicking off the tour. We are very close and can play around with each other in that way, but have tamed it down ‘up there’ in order to avoid stirring up fear. Thank you all for the concern. I own ariels ass, don’t worry.”

At this stage there has been no follow-up statements made from either camp, but with Ariel Pink apologising for his behaviour, and his girlfriend defending it, we’re not too sure which side of things we should be believing here.

Check out Ariel Pink’s ‘Another Weekend’:

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