It’s been an interesting week in the Five Finger Death Punch camp. First singer Ivan Moody’s wife Holly Smith filed for divorce, claiming that he’d assaulted her. Those are some serious allegations, but TMZ claimed they had documents stating as such. The story began to unravel shortly afterwards, when guitarist Zoltan Bathory claimed that Moody wasn’t married via Twitter. However, once again, TMZ found that there were several restraining orders against Moody by members of his own family. While his family history didn’t factor into things, FFDP’s manager Allen Kovac made a statement today shutting down Smith’s claims:
Holly Smith has made claims of domestic violence that were dismissed on July 14th, 2015. She has also claimed that she was married to Ivan Moody, which Ivan denies. A search of county clerk records in the location she claims to have gotten married showed no marriage certificate. Ms. Smith has also made statements alleging that Moody is the father of her child which has also been shown to be untrue.
We look forward to proving that there are no grounds for divorce in this case and that Ms Smith is not a credible source of information. Nobody in FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH condones domestic violence or abuse of any kind. The media attention is rife with false allegations and we hope that the media will start to follow the facts so that Ivan can move on.
Given the shameless attempt to become a media star with these false allegations, I think FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH can take this 15 minutes of fame and use the situation to promote their 6th album (GOT YOUR SIX, due out 9/4) and US tour (with Papa Roach, also starting on 9/4) as well. Early projections show the album looks to debut at #1 – we want to thank Ms Smith and TMZ for all their help!
When writing about the restraining orders earlier this week, we found it a little suspect that Bathory would promote a new single while mentioning the alleged abuse. Kovac just took it one step further. While not as horrible as domestic abuse, using a denial that your singer beats up women to promote an album isn’t the most tasteful way to get the word out.
[via Loudwire]
