My Thoughts On A Certain *Former* Member Who Was Kicked Out In November 2019

I know that it is a 2.5 year old piece of news in the BVB Army, but I want to make it clear from the begining how I think about Ashley:

I do not like him. At all.

The first part of the story is the sexual assult allegations that first appeared on June 20th, in 2020.

I absolutely believe them

Here are a few statistics:

1. False accusations of rape and sexual assault make up around only 5-6% of all reported allegations [1]. So already, the likelihood of Pearl Carolina and Duality making up the claims is incredibly low.

2. Except, this number gets even lower when you realize that its 5-6% of reported rapes and sexual assults. And statistics show that only around 310 out of 1,000 rape victims come forward [2]. 

5.5% (rounding it so I don't go crazy) of 310 is 17.05.

17 out of 310 allegations. Already a tiny number.

But out of 1,000? The likelihood of these accusations being false gets smaller.

And these accusations weren't fantastical. They felt real. There was evidence, and Ashley didn't present evidence that he didn't do it, instead resorting to bullying the two women until they took their stories down. And to me, victims taking their stories down is not sufficient proof that they falsely accused him.

There's another part of this story, as anyone reading this probably knows. And that is what he had done to the band.

Everyone noticed that, for a while, there was something going on with the band in the later years. The energy wasn't what it used to be, especially during the Vale era.

The band members will fully admit to this. Jake said in a Behind The Veil episode that "We kind of got burnt out their for a while." (Behind The Veil ep. 39, 3:20-3:21). In an interview Andy sat down for, he said that he was "apathetic towards the whole idea of that era of the band" (Restitch These Wounds Exclusive Chat w/ Andy Biersack, 28:50-29:00) [3] when he met Lonny.

That changed late 2019 with the release of The Night, an EP full of the band's old energy that was sorely missed.

So, what caused the rebirth?

Well, there are two things that changed in regards to the band: they left their previous record labels (eventually signing with Sumerian), and replaced Ashley with Lonny.

Now, someone could argue that the band was tired because of issues with the label. Alright, that's a fair argument.

Except, there are two things to bring that theory into question:

1. Andy's solo project was still with Lava and Universal Republic, where BVB was signed to. He said that part of the reason for his solo project was because he "wanted to tour without being unhappy" (Restitch These Wounds Exclusive Chat w/ Andy Biersack, 24:26-24:29).

If the band (and thus, he) were having issues with the label, then how would touring seperately, yet under the same label, make Andy any happier?

2. And this is the big one: when talking about the change, Andy said that "there was something within the band that I was unhappy with" (Restitch These Wounds Exclusive Chat w/ Andy Biersack, 24:20-24:23). In Behind The Veil, right after Jake said that they had gotten burnt out, he says "There were things within the band that weren't working" (Behind The Veil ep. 39, 3:22-3:24). Not with the label, within the band. 

There is one thing that changed within BVB: Ashley left. 

And the chance of Duality and Pearl Carolina lying are incredibly slim.

So, to me, thats enough for me to think that Ashley was sexually assaulting women, and was the person causing the problems within the band.

Feel free to scream at me in the comment section

[1] https://www.thecut.com/article/false-rape-accusations.html 

[2] https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system

[3] https://youtu.be/lCMjH7DO-k4