Newsboys’ new frontman Adam Agee reportedly admitted the CCM group had heard “rumours” of Michael Tait’s alleged misdeeds — drug use, grooming and sexual assault — but said that whenever confronted, Tait would “emphatically” “deny” the allegations.
On Thursday, the morning after the news of Tait’s alleged abuse was made public, Agee said in a Facebook group, “Hey guys, we will of course be making appropriate official statements very soon (probably today) but I wanted to be real with you first,” according to a Monday report from ChurchLeaders.
“We have obviously heard rumors over the years and each time something came up we tried to find the source and no one would tell us,” Agee continued. “We asked Tait each time something would come up and he would deny it emphatically. He called a meeting the first week of January and none of us knew that the next day we would be a 4 piece band instead of a 5 piece.”
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Agee said that Tait, 59, “had always said we would be doing this together until we were 70 years old.”
“That’s the truth and you can believe it or not,” he added. “I hate all of this and think it’s incredibly sad. I’m so sorry for the victims and proud of them having the courage to speak up. More coming soon. Love you all.”
Agee’s comments came following the publication of an explosive, 2.5-year investigation by The Roys Report on Wednesday, which included accounts from multiple men who say Tait, who also previously fronted DC Talk, groomed and assaulted them while touring in the Christian music industry.
The article detailed allegations from at least three men, each 22 years old at the time of their encounters with Tait, who claim the singer groomed and sexually assaulted them in separate incidents occurring in 2004, 2010 and 2014.
Two of the men alleged that Tait fondled them while they were intoxicated. One said Tait offered him cocaine aboard the Newsboys tour bus. Another recounted an incident in which Tait massaged his buttocks and anal region after skinny dipping, later initiating unwanted physical contact in bed.
Tait, who joined Newsboys in 2009 after achieving stardom with DC Talk, abruptly stepped down from the band in January.
In an interview last month, Agee told The Christian Post the former DC Talk singer surprised them with the news of his departure and simply told the band “he was going to focus on himself.”
“I know that he left and he just gave us a few reasons why he was stepping down, and he just said he’s going to focus on himself,” Agee said. “Other than that, I don’t really know, because we didn’t really discuss it further. Hopefully, he’ll make some kind of a statement soon, but that, again, is just up to him. We wish it had happened a little bit sooner, but there’s nothing we can do about that, and I think we’ve tried to make the most out of it, and we wish him all the best moving forward.”
In a statement later on Thursday, Newsboys members Agee, Jeff Frankenstein, Jody Davis and Duncan Phillips stressed they “do not condone any form of sexual assault.”
“The four of us are husbands and fathers. Between the four of us, we have fourteen children,” they said. “Our wives and children have made many sacrifices while we have dedicated our lives to playing music together that glorifies God. We are horrified, heartbroken, and angry at this report and in many ways, we feel as if we and our families have been deceived for the last fifteen years.”
“When he left the band in January, Michael confessed to us and our management that he ‘had been living a double-life,'” the band wrote. “But we never imagined that it could be this bad.”
