A famous Swedish opera singer is blaming her husband’s suicide on the #MeToo movement, saying he spiraled into the “deepest depression” after being falsely accused of sexual misconduct.
Anne Sofie von Otter condemned the powerful movement against sexual harassment and assault for enabling a herd mentality and stifling “independent, critical thinking.”
“You can break a person,” she said in an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Her husband, Benny Fredriksson, the longtime head of arts and culture center Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm, killed himself March 17 amid scathing allegations of sexually charged behavior.
“Benny was not a womanizer, he didn’t look at women’s breasts or behinds,” von Otter insisted.
The internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano, 63, ripped the media for using “pornographic undertones” to lure readers and said she hoped Fredriksson’s death would be a “rude awakening” for the tabloids that ruined his reputation.
A slew of anonymous allegations against Fredriksson, 58, emerged in December in reports that called him a “capricious director” and “a little Hitler” during his reign at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.
Swedish tabloids reported that he forced an actress to rehearse naked, made a woman choose between having an abortion and giving up a role, and defended men who were accused of sexual abuse.
But an internal city investigation failed to substantiate those claims.
Fredriksson was “at a loss” when it came to responding to the “character assassination,” his widow said. No one rushed to his defense for fear of being “dragged into the muck of the media.”
“’You are my everything,’ he often said,” von Otter recalled.
Soon after, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression kicked in. Fredriksson stepped down from his position, but the relief that granted him was short-lived.
He took his life in Sydney while traveling with von Otter, who was in the city for scheduled performances.
“We all have good and bad sides, but we no longer live in the Middle Ages,” she said. “We do not publicly pillory anyone and spit on or stone him or her.”
