Dance Gavin Dance's Tilian Pearson responds to one sexual misconduct allegation, faces another

Dance Gavin Dance singer Tilian Pearson finds himself on the defensive this week as two separate sexual misconduct allegations make the rounds online.

The first allegation, which surfaced on Twitter several days ago before finding its way to Reddit, involves a woman who says she had a brief relationship with Pearson in April. You can read the detailed account of her experience here.

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 1), Pearson responded via Reddit with a statement of his own:

This morning I was made aware of allegations from someone regarding a brief relationship surrounding the weekend of Swanfest. Admittedly, this was a time when I was very vulnerable, but I can assure you that every sexual act was purely consensual. Since then, she has reached out to me multiple times wanting to see me again. We met again later in Cleveland on tour, and I decided to end things the following day. It was an amicable split, so this story coming out is extremely surprising.

I have text threads saved that paint a picture of the nature of our brief relationship, but I would prefer not to have to air that out.

It pains me a bit because I thought there was a general lightheartedness and sweetness that wasn't mentioned in her version.I take the subject of sexual assault seriously, and I want to firmly reiterate that there was no moment of anything happening that was not consensual. I understand that in a new sexual relationship, there is a period of figuring each other's preferences out, but there is not a doubt our physical contact ever crossed boundaries into anything resembling assault.

My general state of mind surrounding the weekend was filled with grief, and I was leaning on alcohol as a crutch to get me through it. After Swanfest, I did the tour sober to properly grieve and got a lot of support from the band and friends.

Although her story saddens me to read, I won't express any ill will toward her.

I hope this clears things up, and thank you for listening.
-Tilian

Here are screenshots of our entire text conversation, minus photos she sent to me.

Mere hours after Pearson shared his side of the story, another accuser came forward to allege abusive and manipulative behavior from Pearson within the last two weeks. She also shared screenshots of various texts with Pearson, including one in which she tells him that "the sex felt super coercive and bad especially after I felt like I set a boundary a few times."

Pearson has yet to publicly respond to the second accuser.