‘I’m still gagged’: Jaguar Jonze on the cost of speaking out

Despite being the very public face of the Australian music industry’s #MeToo movement, singer Jaguar Jonze still feels gagged by the country’s onerous defamation laws.

The Taiwanese-Australian indie-pop darling was among the first to speak out against the poor treatment of women in the local music industry when she posted allegations on Twitter about being sexually assaulted by two producers in 2019. She alleges the men put their hands inside her clothing and underneath her underwear and kissed her without her consent, and pressured her to not speak out.

The incidents were reported to police and a 32-year-old Adelaide man was charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of common assault, and a 34-year-old Sydney man was charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of common assault. Both will appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on July 21.

Jaguar Jonze, who became the public face of Australian music’s #MeToo movement, has released her debut album Bunny Mode.Credit: Dom Gould

Following the July 2020 Twitter post she went on to appear on The Project to speak about her experience and the toxic culture in Australian music. Earlier this year, she won a Women In Music changemaker award for her advocacy for making the industry safer to work in. However, on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks, Jonze, whose real name is Deena Lynch, said she still feels she hasn’t been able to fully tell her story.

“The defamation laws in this country (don’t) really let me share my story,” she said. “No one’s been identified, and no details are out there. I’m still gagged, and no one knows who I’m talking about or which perpetrators really hurt me and gave themselves access to my body when I said no.”

Despite feeling unable to publicly detail her sexual assault, the Brisbane-based singer has not shied away from speaking about the toxic culture in the Australian music scene and the revolution taking place that has seen a number of senior executives leave their roles, including Sony Music boss Denis Handlin, who was fired in June last year. He was followed out the door by his son Patrick, his head of corporate affairs Mark Stebnicki and his head of Australian artist marketing, Wayne Ringrow, who all also left Sony Music last year. The Music Network revealed Universal Music’s managing director Darren Aboud left the company this week as it undertakes its second culture review in 12 months.

There is no suggestion Patrick Handlin, Stebnicki, Ringrow or Aboud were accused of any wrongdoing.

On her debut album Bunny Mode, released last month, there’s a track dedicated to the leaders of the industry who she believes have either been explicitly involved in poor behaviour or have presided over toxic workplace cultures where such conduct is alleged to have occurred. In relation to the latter situation, the song, Who Died And Made You King, samples the voice of Denis Handlin, where he speaks of not letting ego get in the way of the success of artists.

“I spent a whole day listening to speeches that he had given, and I fell deeper into this anger that these words are so shallow,” Jonze said on Good Weekend Talks. “I had no idea that he was speaking like this so often, without realising the responsibility of his own power, and how he was using that to create cultures in the workplace and in the industry.”

While Jonze has earned notoriety for being one of the few artists to speak up about poor behaviour in the music industry, the cost has been huge. Jonze said she struggles with her mental health, both from the assault and the repercussions of speaking out, and that while radio stations will gladly talk to her about her advocacy, some are still reluctant to play her music, and the majority of media requests she receives are about her advocacy rather than her artistry. Today, she said she isn’t just fighting to make music a safer place for people to work, but for her own place in it.

“I have to keep trying to fight for my place in Australia, and to be appreciated, not just for the advocacy value that I bring for others, but the cultural value that I bring, and how hard I have to work to get the same opportunity as someone else next to me,” she said. “It’s exhausting and I’m definitely feeling the glass ceiling, being a woman and the bamboo ceiling for being a person of colour.”