Blink 182’s Travis Barker is speaking out against Echosmith drummer Graham Sierota after learning that the 20-year-old had been repeatedly sending private messages to his 13-year-old daughter, Alabama Barker — including ones when the girl was just 10-years-old.
As OK! Magazine reported, Alabama posted screenshots this week of the messages that Sierota had been sending her, including invitations to a cookout and compliments on her looks. In her post, Alabama said she felt the need to call Graham out for his behavior.
“Hey guys! So once again I am bringing this to your attention because I’m a 13-year-old girl and he is 21/20 super creepy,” she wrote.
One of the first messages, sent in 2016 when Alabama was 10, appeared to be an introduction from Graham. In the message, he told the adolescent, “I think ur beautiful.” He would send other messages, including one inviting her to a barbecue he was throwing. In that exchange, Alabama pointed out that she was just a child, prompting an apology.
Graham Sierota has since released a statement saying that he didn’t realize Alabama Barker was so young, believing that she was closer to his own age.
“I didn’t realize she was a minor and assumed she was my age,” he said, via OK! Magazine . “I made a careless mistake and this is a big lesson for me. I would like to apologize again to Alabama, her dad Travis, and her family.”
Travis Barker frequently brought his kids along to awards shows and other events, including the featured photo above that shows the family together at the 2018 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards — two years after Sierota first messaged Alabama.
But Travis Barker did not seem to be happy about the 20-year-old sending flirty messages to his underage daughter. He released a statement to The Blast saying that he was “disgusted” to learn that Sierota had been sending messages to Alabama, saying it was “predatory behavior.”
Echosmith drummer Graham Sierota spent years trying to get Alabama Barker’s attention — starting when she was only 10. So creepy. https://t.co/R4vLBRoGTS
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) August 1, 2019
Many others have also spoken out against Graham Sierota for sending DMs to Travis Barker’s 13-year-old daughter, including celebrity gossip maven Perez Hilton, who called the behavior “grooming” in a tweet . But others questioned why a 10-year-old girl would be on social media in the first place, and noted that it was not appropriate for her to be posting pictures online. Others called for Echosmith to part ways with Sierota, but the band has not released any kind of statement about his future as their drummer.
