Canadian musician Michael Milosh has fired back at ex-wife Alexa Nikolas after she went public with allegations of grooming and abuse.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, the Toronto native, who performs as Rhye, called Nikolas’ claims “outrageously false and the manipulated stories provably untrue” and claimed she “resorted to character assassination” after he stopped helping her financially.
“Now I am being hit with horrific and spiteful lies,” he said, adding that he is “fully prepared to cooperate with any independent investigation into these false claims.”
In an Instagram post this week, Nikolas accused Milosh of being an ephebophile – someone primarily attracted to teenagers – who groomed her for “a green card, success, and sex.”
Nikolas, an actress, recalled she was a 16-year-old fan of Milosh’s music when she reached out to him via MySpace in 2008. She claimed he responded by asking for her phone number and then calling.
“It was definitely flirtatious. It did not seem like just a friendly phone call,” she wrote. “He was aware of my age.”
Nikolas said she sent him a photo of herself in a pregnancy suit from the Iowa set of the TV movie Children of the Corn and he told her it turned him on. “I remember being somewhat flattered and also found this kind of funny and weird,” she wrote.
Nikolas said she thought it was “creepy and uncomfortable” when Milosh allegedly asked if he could stay at the home where she lived with her mother. “Milosh was 33 years old at this point and I was 16,” she wrote. When she was 17, Milosh allegedly invited her to fly to New York so he could photograph her. “It seemed alarming.”
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Nikolas said they had regular video chats that she described as “sexual” and recalled “on numerous occasions undressing upon his request.”
After turning 18, she visited Milosh in Berlin, where they had their first sexual encounter. “I remember feeling very uncomfortable, but I was attracted to him and I did not want our first sexual experience to be spoiled,” Nikolas wrote. “I did not respect my no and neither did he.”
She claimed Milosh’s song “Major Minor Love” is about grooming a young girl and the song “Don’t Call It” samples a clip – played backwards – of her saying “No.”
Nikolas said she was 19 when Milosh popped the question and she believes he only did so in order to obtain a U.S. visa. For the next three years, she claimed, Milosh “brainwashed me into thinking I was insane and he was the cure.”
Eventually, Nikolas sought a divorce – a process she said took three years. “He made me out to be a gold digging monster,” she claimed.
In a follow-up Instagram post, Nikolas said she heard from others about “patterns of abuse and sexual violence inflicted by Milosh,” including a Saskatoon woman he met after a show in 2019.
In his rebuttal statement, Milosh said he has “always strongly supported women and their right to speak out and be heard” and called Nikolas’ allegations “hurtful and shocking.”
He wrote: “Like all marriages, we had our difficulties and attempted to weather them together as best we could. Ultimately, despite our best efforts, we agreed to divorce.”
Milosh did not address specific allegations Nikolas made but said her post was full of “serious and demonstrable untrue accusations” and “absurd and outrageous false claims about me.”
He added: “My life as a touring musician and the pressures of travel and life on the road ultimately took its toll on our marriage and I’m sorry she came to feel my professional life has had a negative impact on her and our life together. Alexa had her own demons and I did my best to be a good husband in trying to overcome them. In the end, we could not help each other.”
On Wednesday, Nikolas responded via Instagram, calling Milosh’s comments “typical megalomaniacal narcissistic behaviour.”
She wrote: “Shame on you. Prove to me you are not a predator … You are a victim shame and a victim blamer. You are a liar.”