Mandy Moore: A publication canceled an interview when I wouldn’t rehash my abuse

Mandy Moore arrives at the 2020 NBCUniversal Winter TCA Press Tour held at The Langham Huntington Hotel on January 11, 2020 in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California, United States.

In 2019, the NY Times did an exposé on Ryan Adams in which his ex-wife Mandy Moore and several other women spoke on the record about his years of creepy, manipulative, domineering behavior towards women. Mandy spoke about how he emotionally abused her for years and stunted her music and acting career, and other women detailed how he would manipulate and groom them – especially when they were quite young – and then string them along and dominate them. Again, this was 2019. Mandy had been divorced from him for four years at that point and she only looked back to tell her story and back up his other victims. Since then, she has said a few times that she doesn’t want to keep revisiting it because (as she rightly concluded) Ryan gets off on being talked about. Two years after the NYT exposé, another publication contacted Mandy for an interview, but only if she would rehash all of that sh-t again. When she told them no, they pulled their interview request. I can’t believe sh-t like this is still happening.

Mandy Moore has said all she’ll say about ex-husband Ryan Adams. On Tuesday, the “This is Us” star revealed on her Instagram Stories that she is furious that an unnamed publication wouldn’t interview her unless she delved “a certain subject” — which seemed to be her allegedly abusive relationship with the rocker. Moore, 36, said that her “blood is still boiling” that she was asked yet again about the matter.

“When they (the publication) were told that I had spoken plenty about a certain subject in my life and would have no further comment (truly there are countless interviews they could pull from, that story is over and there’s nothing more to say.),” she wrote.

“Any comment I make about said experience becomes clickbait and gives them the energy and time they seek and have already stolen from too many for too long,” Moore continued.

The “Candy” singer noted that she has been working in showbiz for over two decades, “but the message this sends is insulting and so out of touch with the cultural discussion around abusive relationships, directly linking someone’s value back to their abuser. The refusal to interview someone unless they agree to relieve that trauma publicly? No thank you,” she added.

Moore and Adams were married from 2009 to 2016. In 2019, Adams, 46 was accused of emotional abuse or sexual misconduct by seven women including Moore in an explosive exposé in the New York Times. Afterwards Moore said she had no regrets about opening up about the alleged abuse.

“Speaking your truth can be painful and triggering but it’s always worth it,” she wrote on Instagram. “My heart is with all women who have suffered any sort of trauma or abuse. You are seen and heard.”

[From Page Six]

I am very curious about which media outlet did this. Considering it really was the two-year anniversary of the NYT exposé, I kind of wonder if it was the Times. It could have been another outlet though, just looking to say something about the anniversary. What’s so f–king strange is that Mandy is currently promoting the fifth season of This Is Us, likely for sweeps (is that still a thing?). She literally has stuff to promote, but media outlets won’t talk to her about her art, at least not unless she’ll constantly relive and rehash her trauma? No. That’s not the way this happens, at all. Especially since she’s been pretty clear and explicit for two years that she has no interest in uttering that man’s name or constantly talking about him in the press. This is an extension of Ryan’s abuse, via media proxy.

25th Annual Critics' Choice Awards

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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16 Responses to “Mandy Moore: A publication canceled an interview when I wouldn’t rehash my abuse”

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  1. Case says:

    As a journalist, I find this totally unacceptable. As Mandy rightly states, they have other quotes and information on the matter to pull from, and could easily say in the piece, “Mandy no longer speaks about Ryan, who she spoke out about two years ago. At the time, she said XYZ.” She’s been in the business since she was a teenager and has plenty of other things (including a new husband and soon-to-be new motherhood) to discuss.

  2. NM says:

    Weren’t there rumors that Ryan and Taylor Swift had a fling?

    • AuntGigi says:

      Nah I doubt Tay would ever f— with a man 2 inches shorter than her. But he DID make that ultra-embarrassing acoustic cover of ‘1989,’ just the whole dang album. I got the vibe he thought he was doing her a favor, giving his art-rock patronage. So so gross.

  3. lucy2 says:

    I’m glad she set her boundaries, and is letting people know this happened.
    It’s extremely brave for a victim of abuse to speak out, especially when the abuser is someone well known and/or powerful. It would be REALLY nice though if the victims didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives rehashing their pain and trauma every time they want to promote a project.

  4. GrnieWnie says:

    Plus her professional value does not come from her relationship. She was never defined by that relationship–she kept it under wraps. People remember her as the cute blonde singer in I Want Candy (or whatever that song is called), the girl with the haircut in that movie with that guy, the girl with style, and the actress on This is Us. She’s not Hilaria Baldwin whose only claim to fame is her spouse. She’s a working actress/singer with a lifetime of work behind her. So it’s especially gross that the publication is saying somehow public interest is contingent on her talking about her abuser. Once again, the human and professional value of a woman is mediated by a man. In this case, her abuser and that of many others. SO gross!

  5. Elissa says:

    I actually disagree here. I thought the email was fine. Journalistically, you cannot let the subject dictate the terms of the interview. What would not have been OK is if she agreed to do the interview under the stipulation of not talking about her ex, and the interviewer brought it up anyway. It’s OK for both parties to set appropriate boundaries.

    • Case says:

      I have to disagree. In many, many cases, public figures set boundaries on what’s okay to ask and what’s off limits, and more times than not journalists are fine with that. It’s not like she’s a politician avoiding crucial questions, she’s a freaking actress. Yes, it’s fine for a publication to say “if you won’t talk about this, we don’t want the interview” in some cases. But when it was supposed to be a profile of her entire career and she said “hey I’ve said all I’m gonna say about Ryan, let’s stick to everything else I’ve done in my career so far,” I take issue with them turning down the piece over that. That means they were more interested in exploiting her for clicks than profiling her to begin with.

      • GrnieWnie says:

        yeah I agree. It’s her personal life. You may not be able to let the subject dictate the terms of what they will/will not talk about in terms of the subject of the interview, which will relate to their body of work. But no one has a professional obligation to talk about their personal life. Many celebrities do not.

        She already talked about it and it’s not as though there was some update for her to add. She’s clearly moved on in her own personal life. So it’s an unusual contingency to place on an interview. “You mentioned something about your personal life five years ago that we want you to talk about again, even though you have already done so in detail. Or else we will not interview you about your career.” The implication is that HE is relevant to her career, and he isn’t. He’s no longer even remotely relevant to her personal life.

      • lucy2 says:

        I agree Case. They were looking for click bait.
        Otherwise they would have continued with the interview, noted that she decline to talk about him, and referred back to what she’s said in the past.

      • Case says:

        Exactly, GrnieWnie. She spoke about Ryan’s abuse extensively already. To my knowledge, nothing significant has happened with him since then. So they’d be making her rehash that trauma just for clicks with no actual need for it. It really has no relevance.

    • tealily says:

      It may not be ethically wrong, but it sure does make them look ghoulish! “We want to talk about your abuse or we don’t want to talk about anything,” like she has nothing else to offer. That’s a big yikes.

      • Elissa says:

        There’s plenty of value in talking about abuse and how it changes or doesn’t change your career and artistic path. That’s the story this particular journalist was interested in. Mandy doesn’t want to participate, good for her for saying no. But no journalist is obligated to write a piece that is dictates by a celebrity.

      • MarcelMarcel says:

        I’m obviously not Mandy so please note my comments are generalised and may or may not apply to her. Abuse survivors experience PTSD and/or CPTSD both within the relationship itself and afterwards.
        Some survivors publicly disclose things to support other survivors through sharing stories, campaigning for better legal support etc… In Mandy’s case she came forward and validated the stories of others who had been abused by her ex.
        So actually no a journalist can’t set discussing abuse as a terms of an interview. What about if discussing this is so triggering it causes a survivor an anxiety attack? Is the journalist going to pay for the therapy session? Will they let the survivor make a generalised statement? Or will the journalist be exploitative and verbally push the survivor beyond the limits of what they feel safe talking publicly with a stranger?
        Mandy is her own person and she is not defined by her ex’s behaviour.
        I’m an artist. If a journalist expected me to discuss my rapist and that event I would never agree to the interview. Mandy is a musician & actress. A journalist should respect her right as a professional to focus on her creative body of work in an interview.

      • Kate says:

        @Elissa – I read the 2019 piece and Mandy talks plenty about how the relationship and the abuse stifled her career and how she was finally finding her creativity and voice again. I think she had just released a new album or was going to. If the angle was “how does abuse affect your career or path” – it’s already been done. The interviewer could easily recap for the reader what she previously disclosed about her personal and career rebirth following an abusive relationship, and then go from there asking her about what she has been doing the past 2 years since that NYT piece, what her current and future projects will be, how she is feeling in her life now, what motivates her, etc.

  6. Miranda says:

    I literally shuddered at “he gets off on being talked about”, because oh my god, that sounds just like my friend’s awful, mentally abusive, gaslighting ex. After she finally broke up with him, she would occasionally try to warn off other girls (often significantly younger. He was almost 40 and going after college girls. Shocking, I know). A few actually listened. One came back to my friend and told her that she basically said to this guy, “fuck off, I know how you treated your ex.” Turns out, when girls confronted him with that, he would say, “yes, I was terrible to her, but I know I could be different with you.” That’s right, he turned being an abusive asshole into a fucking pick-up line. And sometimes, IT WORKED.

    (Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. I’d always hoped that my friend’s ex was a one-in-a-million sort of asshole, and it pisses me off that there are more like him out there.)

    • schmootc says:

      I was terrible to her, but you’re so special, I’ll be nice to you? I mean it’s one thing to be the new woman and use that rationalization in your head, but for the dude to actually say it? That’s seriously next level awful.