Yesterday, the New York Times posted a lengthy report detailing various accounts of sexual and emotional abuse faced by women at the hands of musician Ryan Adams.
One of those accounts featured an interview with a woman, Ava, who claimed that she began talking to Adams when she was fourteen.
In a new report published in The Times, it has been revealed that FBI agents from the Crimes Against Children Squad have taken the first steps to open a criminal investigation against Ryan Adams.
According to the report, law enforcement is seeking to interview Ava, who is now 20, to determine whether Adams committed an offence by engaging in “sexually explicit communications with an underage fan”.
Investigators are looking to obtain text messages shared between Ava and Adams and any other evidence she may have in her possession.
The initial expose claims that the relationship between Adams and Ava began when she was 14 and ended when she was 16. According to the messages reviewed by the Times, Adams asked Ava about her age multiple times. Ava has stated that she did not always honestly. In a text sent in 2014, Adams allegedly wrote: “If people knew they would say I was like R Kelley lol.” The conversations between the two included explicit photographs of Ava. The report has also outlined an incident that involved Ryan Adams exposing himself to Ava via Skype.
Adams has stated through his lawyer that he “never engaged in inappropriate online sexual communications with someone he knew was underage.”
After the Times article was published, Ryan Adams took to Twitter to apologise to “anyone I have ever hurt, however unintentionally,” whilst disputing The Times’s reporting. “I would never have inappropriate interactions with someone I thought was underage.”
But the picture that this article paints is upsettingly inaccurate. Some of its details are misrepresented; some are exaggerated; some are outright false. I would never have inappropriate interactions with someone I thought was underage. Period.
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) February 13, 2019