Bluetones frontman Mark Morriss denies allegations of physical and psychological violence | Music

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Mark Morriss, frontman of Britpop The Bluetones, has been accused of physical and psychological violence by his ex-wife, Anna Wharton.

In an essay published on Substack, Wharton said Morriss abused her on more than one occasion. She said police had previously visited the house but Morriss told them she was lying about her allegations. He was “eventually” warned for “strangling” her when she showed police a photo that appeared to show eight fingerprints around her neck.

“Something you should be thinking about right after an act of violence like this, but otherwise I would never have been believed,” she wrote. She said she asked for support from a domestic violence charity.

Morriss told The Guardian: “I may have been reckless and selfish in some of the transactions in my personal life lately, but these allegations of abuse and gassing are totally untrue and I completely refute them.”

He added that his personal life had “certainly become quite a entanglement, people have undoubtedly been hurt because of me” and that “in many ways this is all a great relief”.

He said, “I am sincerely sorry for everything for everyone caught up here.”

Wharton said he met Morriss in August 2011. He wanted to have a child but told her to have an abortion when she got pregnant. She continued with her pregnancy, during which she heard about another woman who had recently been in a relationship with Morriss. He had told this woman that Wharton had presented himself six months pregnant saying he was the father, she claims.

Wharton said his “constant cheating” meant their relationship was still active and inactive. She said his infidelities often took place with fans – including one six weeks after their marriage – to whom he repeated the line of being deceived in paternity. When she tried to respond to his cheating, she said he told her, “You knew what my job was when you met me.”

She described Morriss as a “bully” who frequently checked their house “to catch me”, including accusing him of lying about the cleaning. “It got to the point where I would polish the back of the front door so he could smell the scent before I walked in,” she wrote. “But cleaning was not the point, control was.”

Wharton accused Morriss of “telling people I’m crazy and lying about me,” “making women believe what he wanted them to do, convincing them not to put the dots together and to realize how a narcissistic, pathological liar and serial predator he is. ”. She claimed he also told his mother that she cheated on him in the pregnancy and lied that she was bipolar.

Wharton wrote of his shame for rekindling the relationship with Morriss last year. She and their now nine-year-old daughter lived in a house separate from him. When they visited one morning in June 2020, she said he was “forced to confess that he had another woman in his bed”.

Hours earlier, she wrote, he had texted her saying that Wharton’s suspicion of cheating “absolutely destroys me” and “I don’t want anyone else.”

She says she later found out that Morriss appeared to have lived a double life, having intimate relationships with two other women, both single mothers, in 2020. The two women reunited, then Wharton.

Morriss told The Guardian that the past 18 months “have undoubtedly had a negative effect” on his sanity and decision making. “But the last thing I wanted to do was hurt the people who were nice to me during this difficulty.”

He said he had a “very strong and healthy co-parenting relationship” with his son’s mother – whom he did not identify – and wanted the same in his relationship with Wharton and their daughter. He regretted that the publication of the case could negatively affect the lives of the children concerned.

Musician The Anchoress, aka Catherine Anne Davies, has said she will end her collaboration with The Helicopter of the Holy Ghost, of which Morriss is a member, after performing on their 2021 single A Little Longer.

Davies said she had never met Morriss “but I certainly don’t want to be involved in anything that perpetuates the power and status that made these things happen.”

Morriss, 50, was born in Hounslow, Middlesex. The Bluetones formed in 1993, releasing singles on Fierce Panda Records before signing to A&M Records and reaching number 1 with their debut album, Expecting to Fly, released in 1996. The follow-up, Return to the Last Chance Saloon , reached number 10 in the charts of the British albums.

Releasing three more albums – the last, A New Athens, in 2010 – the band remained active on the UK touring circuit. They split in 2011, but reunited for a Britpop-themed tour in 2017. Morriss has released four solo albums and is a member of comedian and jazz musician Matt Berry’s live band, The Maypoles.

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