Is it the End of the Bad Boy?
- Niamh Alford
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Take one look at me, and you can probably tell I had an emo phase (“it was never a phase mom”).
To this day, I’m still allergic to wearing colour and can be found listening to the 2000s emo and pop punk bands that brought me comfort in my teens. But, at this point, I’m starting to run out of bands to listen to that haven’t had serious allegations made against them.
I’m only 30, but so much has progressed since my school days - gay marriage has been legalised, Black Lives Matter and the Me Too movement have pushed society forward and made the world a better place (even if there is still much work to be done).
Now, as I look back at the musicians and celebrities I idolised as a teen, I’m seeing them through a very different lens. Experiences and stories that once made me feel uncomfortable are now accompanied by very real allegations against many of the musicians I once adored.
In years gone by, male movie stars, singers and other influential men could get away with a lot under the guise of being the “Bad Boy” - questionable behaviour, controversial views, and a tendency to surround themselves with young (sometimes alarmingly so) women. Men who were seen as players were celebrated, even encouraged, while behaviour that made women uncomfortable, or actively harmed them, was too often dismissed as simply part of the persona.
A prime example of this is Russell Brand, whose persona throughout his career played into the Bad Boy trope, and is currently undergoing litigation for sexual assault charges. The fact that he played the bad boy in the film St Trinians (2007), in which his 30-something character dates one of the schoolgirls, feels particularly uncomfortable in hindsight. His character was meant to be the love interest that young girls watching would idolise. This type of persona was so normalised in the early to mid 2000s that it didn’t even seem that out of place.
And it wasn’t just actors and fictional characters; many other influential men who played the Bad Boy were seen not just as normal, but as aspirational and are only now, years later, finally being questioned. This is true of many of the bands and artists I once turned to as a teenager, the most recent being Jared Leto, frontman of 30 Seconds to Mars.
Like many young people, I found school a challenging time. The transition from child to adult is not easy for anyone, and combined with being given a hard time by some of your peers, it can feel very isolating. I turned to music to help me feel less alone, to give words to the emotions I was experiencing, and to soothe me on a bad day.
In fact, I remember vividly the first day I heard 30 Seconds to Mars. It was around 2008; I was about 12 or 13, at an after-school activity, and a friend was playing one of their songs - The Kill (from the album of the same name). I remember feeling this new emotion I hadn’t experienced before (spoiler alert, it was teenage angst). I went home, searched the lyrics online and found the song on YouTube, and that was that - an emo kid was born.
Fast forward through copious amounts of eyeliner, black hair dye and piercings (sorry mum) to now, The Kill is still one of my favourite albums of all time, and yet I’ve not felt comfortable listening to it for a long time.
The reason being that, for years, I’ve read stories of frontman Jared Leto being accused of various inappropriate behaviour towards women without any real consequences. Those stories go back as far as 2005 (although I only became aware of them about a decade later). Whether it was him sending used condoms to co-stars under the guise of “method acting”, or messaging teenage models, the news would just move on, and nothing would be done about it. He was seen as being a bit of an eccentric, a Bad Boy, and the alarming behaviour was brushed off.
But now, several women have come forward in a BBC investigation to say he behaved inappropriately towards them when they were teenagers.
And I believe these women without a doubt. I’ve witnessed this behaviour from Leto firsthand.
Back in 2013, I felt disgust and betrayal when witnessing Leto (then in his 40s) bring a young girl on stage. The girl had removed her shirt while in the crowd, and Leto leered and made comments about her while showing her off to the crowd.
He then asked her how old she was; she replied 16.
This was not enough to make him stop. That was the day I stopped following the band and could no longer bring myself to listen to their music. The fact that this happened on stage in front of thousands of people without any consequence was deeply disturbing.
Bands like 30 Seconds to Mars and the music they made were my and many others’ safe haven. For members to take advantage of their young fans felt like such a betrayal and abuse of power.
This issue is not just isolated to Leto, there is a list as long as my arm of emo and pop-punk bands with allegations against them, even if many of them have never been charged with anything. And this extends into other genres too. The music industry has been rife with abuse for far too long. From R Kelly, P-Diddy, Ian Watkins (frontman of Lost Profits), and many, many other names. Things that were swept under the rug for years have been gradually coming to light, and while some have faced consequences such as jail time, others have had continued careers with few or no consequences. One example being Chris Brown, who so savagely beat his at-the-time girlfriend Rihanna that he nearly killed her, and is currently on a massive co-headline North America Stadium tour with Usher.
But things are changing. The Me Too movement has empowered more and more women to come forward in the hopes that they might just be taken seriously. And while the conviction for rape is still shockingly low (only 3% are charged, let alone convicted in the UK), I am glad to see that things do appear to be getting better, albeit far too slowly.
The BBC report seems to be being taken seriously, with Leto reportedly losing a major role in response to the allegations.
But, while sports players can still play despite ongoing cases of assault against them, men like Leto can still go on tour, or worse, rapists can be President of one of the most powerful countries in the world, more work needs to be done to ensure women and young girls, and also other men no longer have to fear influential men from taking advantage of them and hiding behind their power.
There is hope. Women are no longer accepting silence as the only option, many men are changing the narrative and becoming better allies, and slowly but surely more is being spoken about past wrongs that have yet to be righted.
The Bad Boy is finally getting his comeuppance.
