Yahoo Sports Adam Levine’s Flirty DM Cringefest: Breaking Down All the Allegations so Far
A lot has happened since Monday, when the world discovered that a very famous musician may also be (gasp!) a womanizer.
OK, it’s not exactly shocking. And there’s no real evidence that Adam Levine, frontman of the candy-coated pop band Maroon 5, ever actually had a physical affair. But the breakneck speed at which five different women came forward this week, alleging everything from a year-long relationship to innocent flirting with the crooner, has left gossip hounds salivating.
A series of awkward Instagram DMs show that People’s 2013 Sexiest Man Alive may have let the honor go to his head. There are moments of unadulterated ego, like when he appears to tell one woman she’s “50 times hotter in person” before adding, “and so am i,” or when he later asks the same woman if he can name his child after her, leading her to conclude, “I’m in hell.” Some of the messages are just pathetically horny—in one thread, he appears to compliment a woman’s backside and begs her, “I’d do anything for it,” capping off his plea with a swirly-eyes emoji that almost makes you feel bad for him, until you remember he’s married with kids.
Some of the allegations take a more sinister turn. One woman claims her boyfriend physically assaulted her after finding suggestive text messages from the singer on her phone.
Adam Levine Denies Affair—but Admits He ‘Crossed the Line’
Levine has kept mostly quiet as he weathers the storm of revelations and subsequent media coverage. After the first allegation, Levine denied ever having an affair, but copped to using “poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner,” according to a statement provided to TMZ. Four more women have since come forward with their own stories and receipts, prompting questions about the future of his marriage.
Meanwhile, paparazzi have spotted the singer and his wife of eight years, former Victoria’s Secret model Behati Prinsloo, multiple times since the scandal broke. The pair—who share two children together and are currently expecting their third—were all smiles as they strolled around Montecito, California, where they own a home, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Below is a roundup of the five women who have come forward against Levine so far.
Sumner Stroh
Stroh single-handedly broke the damn on this scandal in a watershed TikTok post on Monday.
The 23-year-old OnlyFans model, who now boasts nearly a million followers on TikTok and Instagram combined, says she was involved in an affair with Levine for about a year, though it’s not clear when the alleged tryst began.
Her first video includes screenshots of Instagram DMs purportedly from Levine.
“It is truly unreal how fucking hot you are,” he appears to say from his verified account. “Like it blows my mind.” He later adds, “You are 50 times hotter in person. And so am i hahah."
All the while, Stroh says she was under the impression that Levine and Prinsloo were separated. She admits to feeling “exploited” and “manipulated” by the alleged affair, which she says began shortly after she moved to Los Angeles.
The weirdest part comes when, after what Stroh describes as “months” of not talking, Levine appears to slide back into her inbox this past summer to ask if he can name his third child after her.
“OK serious question. I’m having another baby and if it’s a boy I really wanna name it Sumner. You okay with that? DEAD serious,” the screenshot of the message reads.
In another TikTok posted on Tuesday, Stroh claims she only came forward because she wanted to kill any possible news stories in the works, after finding out that one of her friends tried to sell the screenshots to a tabloid.
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“I believed they were keeping [their separation] quiet to avoid the negative press. I was new to L.A., so I assumed with celebrities of that caliber that that’s how that was,” she says in the Tuesday video. “I believed everything he said because of my vulnerable position.”
Levine has denied ever meeting up with anyone or carrying out an affair, but his alleged messages to Stroh, if legitimate, directly contradict that.
Alyson Rose
On Tuesday, Rose—who has 69,000 followers on Instagram and seems to have tried her hand at a cosmetics line last year, though not much is known about her beyond that—posted a since-deleted TikTok showing more flirtatious messages from the Grammy-winning musician.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Levine appears to tell her in the messages.
TikTok users quickly roasted Rose for some of her own replies, in which she tried to differentiate herself from other women with her musical taste.
“I’m so weird too and only listen to metal lol,” she said, to which Levine replied, “Said no hot chicks ever other than you.”
Despite her dubious attempts at standing out, Rose seems to have been inspired by Stroh’s honesty.
“If any other girl has experiences with him, which I’m sure they have, I think they should post it, because I feel really bad for his wife,” she said at the end of her video.
Maryka
Maryka, perhaps the most mysterious figure in this saga, is a heavily tattooed young woman with about 46,000 followers on Instagram. Though her account once described her as a comedian, that label appears to have since been scrubbed from her profile.
On Tuesday, TMZ reported that she posted a series of screenshots of Instagram DMs between her and Levine’s official account.
Content creator Dana Omari quickly took the helm of this part of the drama, sharing further screenshots between Maryka and Levine on her own Instagram account.
In one exchange, Maryka appears to say she’s taking time away from Instagram, to which Levine replies, “Distract yourself by fucking with me !” He then sends her a brief video message saying, “I’m stupid.”
In another exchange, he admits, “I’m now obsessed with you,” to which Maryka asks, “Dude aren’t you like married lol.” Levine replies: “Yes but it’s a bit complicated. Stuff gets hard and the vid thing didn’t help. I might get away.”
Alanna Zabel
Zabel, the owner of AZ I AM yoga in Santa Monica, California, posted an Instagram Story on Tuesday detailing a dark end to Levine’s risqué communication with her.
Zabel, 49, says her exchanges with the singer took place while she was his yoga teacher between 2007 to 2010. (This allegation does not appear to overlap with Levine’s relationship with Prinsloo, whom he reportedly met in 2012.)
“One day he texted me saying: ‘I want to spend the day with you naked.’ I was in the bath but my jealous ex saw it and went into a rage,” she wrote in her post this week.
Zabel tried to convince her boyfriend that Levine’s texts were meant for his girlfriend at the time, Rebecca Ginos. She says she then texted Levine to ask if that was the case, but when he didn’t reply, her boyfriend allegedly became violent and broke her wrist.
“Massive life-changing, destructive moment,” Zabel said. “And when I told Adam he ignored it, never apologized, removed me from the upcoming tour and iced me out during one of the most devastating times of my life.”
In a follow-up post later on Tuesday, she clarified that Levine was not responsible for her boyfriend’s actions.
“What disappointed and continues to disappoint me about Adam, is how Adam responded after this incident,” she said.
In a comment below her post, she added: “I hope Adam can be honest and real. I hope he can be an example to men as how to treat women, because babes be hot! But that doesn’t mean that women are objects and should be treated that way. I know Adam has a good heart in there, and hopefully he can find deep healing in this situation as well, making peace with his past, while preparing his young daughters to be empowered, intelligent and respected young women some day.”
Ashley Russell
The latest woman to level allegations against Levine is 21-year-old Auburn University college student Ashley Russell, who told the Daily Mail that Levine first started watching her Instagram Stories in March after allegedly finding her on his “Explore” page.
“I wonder what his [feed] looks like… all young women? Very odd to me,” Russell told the British tabloid.
Levine then graduated to liking her posts and sending her messages asking her if she’s in college and applauding her for her progress at the gym.
“[He would message] almost everyday at night around 10pm my time. I would check every time I posted a story, which was every day, and it was always viewed by him,” she said. “He would like mainly like booty stories and would always reply with something to do with leg or booty day at the gym.”
Their exchanges ended after she advised him against flirting with random women online.
“When I told him he was going to get caught DMing girls like me he stopped texting me,” she said.
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