Chvrches Forced To Increase Security At Shows Following Death Threats From Chris Brown Fans

Scottish band Chvrches have been forced to step up security at their shows after receiving a stream of death threats from Chris Brown fans.

As we reported earlier, last week the band publicly called out their recent collaborator Marshmello for choosing to work with Brown and Tyga on upcoming track ‘Light It Up’.

“We are really upset, confused and disappointed by Marshmello’s choice to work with Tyga and Chris Brown,” the band wrote in a statement posted across their socials. “We like and respect Mello as a person but working with people who are predators and abusers enables, excuses and ultimately tacitly endorses that behaviour. That is not something we can or will stand behind.”

Brown responded angrily to their posts, writing in a comment on Instagram that the band are a “bunch of losers”. “These are the type of people I wish walked in front of a speeding bus full of mental patients,” he wrote. “Keep groveling over you own insecurities and hatred.”

Over the past few days, Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry has revealed some of the abuse she’s received since the band made their initial comments — and today she wrote on Twitter that the band have had to employ extra security and police at their shows, and in their personal lives, due to the level of threats being made against them. She also revealed she won’t be staying at her home when the band return from their tour, for security reasons.

She made the comments in response to an apparently critical tweet from music journalist Laura Snapes — the original tweet has since been deleted, read Mayberry’s full thread below.

Respectfully, Laura, you don’t know what the contact negotiations about this collaboration were, and you don’t know any of the discussion that went on behind the scenes. We have only met a couple of times but this kind of victim blaming from another woman is pretty depressing.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019

Because we collaborated with a mainstream artist – again, the songwriting splits, contractual terms and negotiations you know nothing about – we somehow forfeited a right to not be sent death threats? I struggle to understand how music snobbery applies in this instance.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019

And again, it is not you who is having to have police presence at shows and advance security in their actual own real life outside of a band persona.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019

So perhaps before you use your platform in this manner – to your readers and fans of your work – consider what it’s like to be the woman on the receiving end of this stuff, rather than the person who writes about it from the comfort and safety of the sidelines. Thanks.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019

I am very sure you have had versions of this experience which is why I am confused. Excuse me if “obviously awful” doesn’t really feel like it covers it. We weren’t expecting him to uphold our values after the fact. We were ensuring our fanbase didn’t think we co-signed on that.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019

I am not staying in my own home when we finish tour because the threats we have received have reached such a scale. We have to have the police at our shows now. If that’s what I deserve for saying mainstream music should be more morally conscious, then so be it. You’re right.

— Lauren Mayberry (@laurenevemay) April 29, 2019