Ethel Cain has posted a lengthy message after a slew of disturbing posts emerged, including her wearing a t-shirt which said ‘legalise incest’ on it.
Screenshots began circulating, said to be shared by the 27-year-old singer in 2017 and 2018, featuring offensive language and alleged child pornography.
Another image that Cain is accused of drawing and sharing on the site Curious Cats, parodied a missing persons poster for a nine-year-old girl who was murdered.
Initially shared by X account Herweirdsilas, posting under the name ‘Exposing’, the questionable content quickly gained traction.
After a few days of the images circulating Cain, whose real name is Hayden Silas Anhedönia, addressed the controversy via a Google Doc, admitting to the posts.
She wrote that at 19 – during the time of the posts – she had ‘fallen into a subculture online that prioritised garnering attention at all costs’.
The American Teenager singer added: ‘[I] intended to be as inflammatory and controversial as possible. I would have said (and usually did say) anything, about anyone, to gain attention and ultimately just make my friends laugh.’
Addressing her use of the N-word directly, Cain continued: ‘At the end of the day I am white, so while I can take accountability for my actions, there’s no way for me to fully understand the way it feels to be on the receiving end of them.
‘All I can say is that I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, to anyone who read it then and to anyone reading it now. Any way you feel about me moving forward is valid.’
In her statement – which can be found here – Cain directly addresses each post, including the incest t-shirt, which she clarifies was ‘never sold as merch’.
‘Regarding the topic of incest in my artwork, it’s a layered experience,’ she wrote. ‘I have always been interested in creating art centered around the taboo.
‘Rather, as a lonely and confused child I had my own complicated personal struggles with the concept during puberty (in a hypothetical manner, not involving anyone in my actual family). I have since untangled these feelings and I now understand their root.
‘While sometimes the topic of incest may get intermingled on a song with my own experiences of sexual abuse or my own familial traumas, I have never and would never fetishise such a sensitive subject.’
She said she was ‘not proud of her actions’ and has tried to ‘bury’ this past in order to move forward with her life.
However, even if she looks back ‘shamefully’ at the time, Cain stated the resurfacing of her posts is ‘not the actions of a well-meaning individual’.
‘These are screenshots obtained through extensive digging, hacking and cooperative effort amongst a group of individuals who do not care who else is hurt by witnessing this media as long as I am ultimately hurt the worst in the end,’ she accused.
Cain, a transwoman, called this a ‘targeted smear campaign’ against her and urged fans to ‘recognise the patterns of transphobia’.
‘To try and sum everything up, no I am not a violent misogynist fetishising the “female experience”,’ she wrote. ‘No I am not the creator of child pornography, nor am I a pedophile, a zoophile, or a porn-addicted incest fetishist.
‘This information was hoarded until the perfect moment arose to unleash it. In this case, a baseless attempt to assassinate my boyfriend’s character became the catalyst.
‘He will address these claims in his own time on his own terms and I support him wholeheartedly. This entire situation is negligent, sensationalised, and extremely dangerous, not only for myself but for all my loved ones.’
Cain’s posts were made around the time of her early EP releases. She has since gone on to release three studio recordings – the latest of which is due out in August.
Her previous album Preacher’s Daughter and January 2025 release Perverts both saw moderate chart success in the US and UK.
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