Simon O’Connor will no longer be performing on the upcoming Modest Mouse tour.
The guitarist, who joined the band in 2021, has been cut from the band’s forthcoming shows after he allegedly sent a minor inappropriate messages on Instagram.
“Upcoming tour update,” Modest Mouse captioned an Instagram post this week.
The post features an image with a white background, and the news that Simon won’t be performing on tour written in black.
“Simon O’Connor will not be joining us on the upcoming tour. The good news is that Seth Jabour of Les Savy fav will be jumping in to play guitar. We look forward to being out there with you all,” the message read.
What led to Simon being ousted from the Modest Mouse tour?
A week before the announcement, a 17-year-old took to Reddit to share that Simon sent an “erotic image” in their DMs, when they were still 16, “while giving me the excuse he had been partying or whatever, continuing to message me.”
The user noted that their age is in their bio, and they shared screenshots of the alleged messages.
How Simon responded after the allegations came to light
Simon seemingly took ownership of his actions, taking to the Modest Mouse subreddit.
“Firstly, I would like to just state that I unequivocally oppose any sexual behavior towards minors, as a human and a parent it disgusts me,” he started out in his post.
He went on to explain that someone pops up “from time to time with the intention of, for lack of a better term, messing with me.”
“After a long night, I picked my phone up to discover that a similar profile had been interacting (‘likes’ to be specific) with some of my instagram posts and stories,” Simon continued. “I assumed that this was the same person I had dealt with before and, with poor judgement, I decided to reach out with a tasteless meme, a sticker that read ‘Simon calls your bluff,’ and an attempt to indicate that I recognized the ‘barrage of likes’ and similar photo content from the previous profiles…. Almost a ‘gotcha.’ After a few minutes, I realized that I had made a mistake and this was not the person who I had dealt with before. I unsent the messages and immediately ceased communication.”
“I’m genuinely sorry to the person who received those messages. They didn’t deserve to be put in that position, and I’m sorry for the stress and attention this has brought them,” he added. “I know some people will choose not to believe me, and I understand that. I can’t change what’s happened. All I can do is tell the truth, take responsibility for my mistake, and apologize.”
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