Tommy Vext Launches $100,000 GoFundMe for Solo Project, Says ‘Smear Campaigns Were Launched’ to Destroy His Career

Tommy Vext has issued a detailed statement about his departure from Bad Wolves, along with launching a GoFundMe campaign for a current solo project. Despite his former Bad Wolves bandmates claiming Vext’s leave was not related to “cancel culture,” Vext believes left-wing mobs assembled to destroy his career.

In an Instagram post titled Vexit, the musician writes:

Let me start by expressing a huge debt of gratitude to all the fans, all the people at the label, the management, and everyone who helped in establishing my band Bad Wolves’ career.

I take great pride and sincerity in what we have accomplished together. Bad Wolves became the fastest rising rock band of the last decade with 5 number one consecutive hit singles. Thanks to the massive support from our fans we exploded into mainstream rock consciousness and (no small feat for a metal band) we even held the #1 spot across the entire Apple Music Platform on all continents. We accumulated hundreds of millions of streams, and as a result YOU helped us we giving back hundreds of thousands of dollars to various charities.

Our future was bright, and our trajectory was undeniable, until Covid struck and changed all our lives. I saw things happening that I didn’t understand. During the first quarantine I publicly voiced my concerns about where we are going as a nation and what is happening to America, the country I love.

I voiced my disappointment of protests turning into violent riots. Cities, businesses, lives destroyed “mostly peacefully”. I criticized the media standing idle and even condoning that behavior. I pointed out that Good causes were infiltrated by bad actors, hijacked and delegitimized a good movement. I dared to question who financially benefits from this and who was funding these events.

I questioned the lockdowns as small businesses were driven into bankruptcy yet big chains were allowed to operate. I questioned the imposed social distancing and why rioting and looting are exempt, or why you can’t have family gatherings or eat at restaurants unless you are a politician. This is a repeated hypocrisy we saw time and again.

And for this they came after me.

In June 2020, Vext released a conspiracy-laden video which invoked various fringe beliefs, which have been heavily debunked. Vext repeated anti-Semitic theories that billionaire investor George Soros pays fake protestors to attend leftist gatherings. He also claimed Antifa are made of “highly trained professional rioters and escalators” paid by the Clinton Foundation to disrupt and sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement. Vext went on to claim, "I'm African-American … I've grown up in this country and I have not experienced actual racism. We don't have a problem with race here. It's all manufactured,” before recalling his own experiences with racism just weeks later.

Me, an African American artist speaking his mind. I became unacceptable by the gatekeepers because I walked off the plantation. I had to be silenced. Cancel culture came after my band. I was threatened, ridiculed, blackmailed and smear campaigns were launched to destroy my career, my reputation and my livelihood.

In their own video statement following Vext’s departure, Bad Wolves stated, “Right now, what we would like to say is this is not about cancel culture, in what has transpired with the band. We have too much to hold on to cancel someone over their political beliefs of anything.”

Prior to the 2020’s end, court documents (obtained by MetalSucks) showed that Vext had been accused of assault by his former girlfriend, fitness model and personal trainer Whitney Johns. Vext denied these allegations and, following an additional court hearing, Johns was granted a two-year domestic violence restraining order against Vext.

The graphic reports suggested Vext had been physically abusive to Johns, citing incidents of violence pertaining to strikes that drew blood, a chokehold that nearly caused Johns to lose consciousness, among other alleged instances of brutality.

These events really opened my eyes, because this was no longer just an urban legend or conspiracy theory, this was literally happening to me. Censorship became very real and I was fighting organized hit job after organized hit job aimed at my character and even my physical freedom.

This is when I realized what I was up against. This is bigger than me. This is when and why I publicly endorsed the sitting President of the United States of America, because I believed he was fighting the same big tech, the same media, the same gatekeepers, the same faceless radicals who wish to destroy our first amendment rights.

But I will not be silenced.

I will not abandon my values and my love for the flag of this country. I will fight for the Constitution. And our freedom of speech, which hopefully now all of you can see is being blatantly violated by big tech.

However, this is my fight. I realize I cannot drag my band members and people around me into this. I [decided] on my own decided to go solo. This way, everything I say and do will affect only me. I wish the best for the guys in Bad Wolves, we had some of the best times of my life building a band together, and I love those guys. But you guys know me. And I have to fight back. This is who I am.

I can’t expect you to put your lives on the line to defend me, especially when we don’t have the same ideologies in mind, I can’t accept the label to fight my battles on my behalf. And to all the fans to my friends to my family. Thank you for always supporting my voice. I’m excited to start the next phase of my career.

Over the past year I’ve recorded over 37 songs by myself. Due to COVID. There was no way for the band to get together and to work on a record. And so I worked fever feverishly in the studio with different artists producers and songwriters, and after 37 songs were completed, it was very clear that I had become a solo artist.

I don’t want anyone to say negative things to my former band members. Those guys are going to have a hard enough time. Processing all this, finding a new singer, and finishing a record when they couldn’t work all last year.

I don’t want anybody to say hateful things on my behalf. I don’t have negative feelings toward these guys, and we had a really great run, and we accomplished some great things. I’m still part owner of Bad Wolves, and I want them to succeed.

For me right now. I’m going to be moving on. So, in the link in my bio. I have a Linktree, and I’m starting a GoFundMe page. Because I have to finish paying for the studio. So basically, now that I’m stepping down. I have a massive studio bill that was supposed to be covered by an advance from a record label I no longer have.

What I will do is, whether you donate $1 or $10 or $100—whatever you donate, you will get a free copy of the cover album, and a link that will go out to everyone who participates in the GoFundMe. I put up an Only Fans—there are no nudes on there. And then all of the, the entire cover albums, the double cover albums—all the songs, the 22 songs, those songs were not recorded by members of Bad Wolves.

They were recorded with my studio team, it’s the same, the same guys, Philip Naslund, the Swedish producer, and Max Karon, who’s a guitar player and producer out of Las Vegas who also are the artists who played on ‘Zombie‘ that everybody knows. So, this has been my creative writing team.

And I’m going to continue to work with these guys. And I’m really, really looking forward to getting music out as soon as possible. So as soon as, as soon as I get this stuff done. I’m going to be putting up a shop, I’m going to be collaborating with other artists—I’ve already talked to so many, so many like a-list artists have reached out to me from the hip hop world, from rock bands, from metal bands, it’s been overwhelming. I know I’m taking a bullet. I’m taking an arrow straight to the face. But this is sometimes you have to do what you have to do when you believe in something.

And when things are wrong. You can either shut up and play the game. Or you can speak the truth and speak what you think is is what’s right. So, I love all you guys. Please, anybody who’s screen recorded this go over to my Facebook, either Vext or Tommy Vext and post it on the page. Share it with whoever you like, share it on your stories.

But this is very real and everyone’s seeing it we’re seeing celebrities and politicians being completely deleted from social media platforms. We’re seeing—I’m not the only artist who has been dropped from his record label, because of some of the political statements that have been made. This is a widespread issue, and it’s it’s up to you guys.

You know I’m somebody who, as I previously said I’ve donated over $350,000 in my career, which is more than what I’m worth to to various charities, including Dolores O’Riordan‘s family, and most recently the police officers who were shot in the ambush in Compton. And I’m not somebody who’s comfortable asking for help. And this is a real humble moment for me, because I have, I have to continue to do my art. I have to continue to make music. I have to continue to get it out to you guys.

I’m going to be starting a website, and you guys can sign up for, for all that stuff as it comes. And if you guys can give and you can’t give, that’s okay. If you have any, you can just leave positive reinforcing messages. And again, you know, you have to understand, Doc and John and Chris and Kyle are like my brothers. I’ve known these guys for 20 to 20 to 10 years is the shortest amount of time I’ve known those guys.

They have a right to continue to do what do what they’re doing. They have a right to have their own career, and they have a right to their own political beliefs, which are which you know, it’s not fair for them to take heat for beliefs that they don’t have—these are my beliefs. So I’m going to do my thing. I really, really appreciate you guys, I really love you guys. You know, this is, this is going to be a positive thing. And there’s going to be a healthy competition—I can’t wait to hear what comes out of them musically.

You know I’ve got a shortlist of singers… I’m fingers crossed of singers that I’m a fan of that I hope they get. And, you know, I just, you know, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna crush it.

And so I’m just gonna keep making music and keep doing my thing. And, you know, thank you guys I really appreciate it, and it’s been my honor and privilege to meet you guys, and to perform for you guys and to share experiences with you guys. And, you know, every day I get offstage every time we play a show I end the show by saying, you know, thank you for giving me an opportunity to live a life beyond my wildest dreams.

And no matter what the media can do to me, no matter what the gatekeepers can do to me, or big tech or this at the other. I literally am someone who was, I was a drug addict. You know who got clean and I had this amazing journey, and I’ve been all over the world and I’ve saved other people’s lives. There are people who, you know, there, there are people who are, I look up to, that are artists that would not be alive if it wasn’t for me.

And that’s been the great privilege of my life is to be someone who, you know, when, when my higher power called me to show up for other people, you know, I knew what to do. And so, I love you guys, I love my life. I love making art. I love this country fucking god bless America, god bless all you guys, god bless everywhere. It’s a crazy time and you know I’m keeping the faith. And, you know, this is Vexit 2021. All right, thanks.

In another statement posted today (Jan. 14), Vext added:

In the past few months betrayal has become a culture. Many of the people I did the most for turned their backs on me and when it was apparent I was of no use to them anymore they sought to steal what I had earned. But with this great spiritual shedding of skin I called into my orbit many powerful good decent God fearing people. Those who lived by a moral code and displayed unwavering integrity. We must not sacrifice our values for things. “We must stop loving things and using people. When we should loving people and using things”

I want to thank you all who stood by my side. Everyone in the industry, the other artists and most of all the fans and supporters.

People want and need to be able to express themselves and engage in diversity of thought. We must be allowed to communicate possibilities and potentiality without persecution.

Humanity is in a dark transition right now. We need Love and peaceful discourse to steer us back to the light. We must stop responding to our hurt feelings with hate and take a look inside as to why our feelings have become so easily hurt.

We need to ask who will be I trusted in molding our reality ? Aren’t we still responsible for shaping the fabric of our own destinies?

Fans can contribute to Vext’s GoFundMe, which has raised nearly $100,000 as of this posting.