The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Social Committee has announced they will no longer host band LANY at this year’s Lawnparties, scheduled for this Sunday, Oct. 3. This comes after many students expressed concern with the announcement of the headliner after allegations of predatory behavior, manipulation, and emotional abuse came to light about lead singer Paul Klein.
In a Tuesday night email to the undergraduate student body, USG president Christian Potter ’22 and USG Social Chair William Gu ’23 cited student concerns as the motivating factor behind their decision.
“Once made aware of the allegations against LANY after the headliner announcement this past Sunday, the USG Senate and Social Committee immediately took action and began investigating ways to address the situation,” they wrote. “The Senate leadership decided on Monday that, due to the nature of the allegations, the appropriate solution would be to attempt to invite an entirely new main act for this year’s Lawnparties.”
The email states that USG will “continue to update the student body regarding the selection of a new headline act.” They had hoped to announce the new headliner along with the announcement of LANY’s cancellation.
“However, given the logistical intricacies of finding a replacement artist with short notice, we are unable to provide a definitive announcement of a new headliner at this moment,” they wrote.
Potter and Gu concluded the email with their commitment to creating an inclusive environment.
“We would like to reaffirm that the USG Senate condemns all forms of sexual misconduct. It is our utmost priority to foster a community that is safe, just, and inclusive; Lawnparties is no exception to that,” they wrote.
In an email to The Daily Princetonian, Gu explained that if they “had been aware of these allegations, [USG] would not have considered LANY as a potential headliner for Lawnparties.”
According to celebritytalent.net, the booking price for LANY ranges from $75,000–$149,999.
Shortly after the initial headliner announcement, several students quickly took to social media to point out that the lead singer of the group, Paul Klein, has received several allegations of predatory and manipulative behavior, and emotional abuse.
Enrique Zúñiga González ’22 was one of the first students to respond negatively to the announcement on Twitter. In an email to the ‘Prince’, he criticized USG for failing to research the controversy beforehand.
“A simple Google Search and some comments from friends were enough to know this was messed up,” he said.
He expressed his relief that USG decided to cancel LANY’s performance.
“I feel like having them there would make students feel very unsafe,” he said. “Given their allegations, many of them coming from college-aged women, I think that was a terrible idea.”
He added that the entire situation is emotionally taxing on many students.
“Waiting for the surprise and hyping the release date was not worth this much pain caused on survivors,” he said. “Some of us have had to relive our traumatic experiences just to justify why we don't want to have [LANY] perform at our campus.”
The allegations of inappropriate conduct are compiled on a public Google document created by Twitter user @hahlys, Hailey Pryor, which outlines 12 separate allegations from fans who claim to have been involved in a harmful relationship with Klein at various points between 2014–2020.
The 'Prince' has not attempted to independently verify the allegations in the Google document.
Pryor is a student at Fordham University in New York City. She decided to compile the allegations because she wanted “to do anything [she] could to educate people on this band’s intentions.”
All of the fans on the document were completely anonymized, with names and locations of events omitted.
Pryor first became aware of allegations against Klein in August 2020 and received several allegations from fans across the country in December 2020. Since then, Pryor says that she has continued to update the document as more information becomes available, and made the document public in July 2021 when the group announced that they would be going on tour.
“I wanted to make sure that their fans, especially young women, knew what this band was capable of and how to stay safe around them if they still planned on going to this tour,” she wrote in a message to The Daily Princetonian.
In a message to the ‘Prince’ Julia Nees ’25 responded to the announcement with mixed emotions.
“Although I’m glad LANY isn’t performing anymore, I wish the USG would’ve been more transparent from the beginning about their efforts in getting a new performer,” she said. “I am still disappointed that not enough research was done about them beforehand, as it took students literally minutes to find the allegations.”
Hannah Faughnan ’23 organized a petition which went live early Tuesday afternoon calling for the cancellation of LANY’s performance and more transparency in the selection process of Lawnparties performers. At the time of publication, the petition received 783 signatures in approximately nine hours.
In an email to the ‘Prince’, Faughnan stressed that “there is still an ongoing fight to amend the system that allowed for this to happen in the first place.”
Lawnparties student opener Naaji Hylton ’22, professionally known as J. Paris, was unaware of the decision until tonight’s email.
“I wish I would have known earlier, they definitely could have told me about it,” he said.
“I'm still planning on giving a great show one way or another. But, I think, I have more space to perform with students being happier about whoever is going to perform,” Hylton said.
LANY did not immediately respond to request for comment.
This story is breaking and will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.
Associate News Editor Naomi Hess ’22 and Assistant News Editor Ashley Fan ’24 contributed reporting to this piece.
Sidney Singer is a news contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at Sidneysinger@princeton.edu or on Instagram at @Sidneysinger.
Andrew Somerville is a staff writer who corresponds with and covers USG happenings and other campus news. He can be reached at jas19@princeton.edu.
Editor’s Note: The headline was changed to avoid confusion and specify the allegations against Klein.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to reflect that the 'Prince' has not sought to independently verify the allegations against Paul Klein and to remove a description of specific allegations.
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