Mea culpa received! After Graham Sierota, 20, apologized for messages he sent to Travis Barker’s 13-year-old daughter, Alabama, the teen forgave the Echosmith drummer.
“Hey guys ! I am posting this on behalf of the drummer of Echosmith !” the Blink-182 drummer’s daughter with ex-wife Shanna Moakler wrote on her Instagram Stories on Thursday, August 1. “He had dmed me a while back in 2016 and then once again in July saying I was beautiful and invited me to a bbq at his house.”
She went on: “He is very sorry about the situation and regretful. I forgive him and would like for this all to be over.”
According to screenshots Alabama previously posted online, Sierota allegedly messaged her in September 2016, writing that he thought she was “beautiful.” He was 17 at the time, and she was 10.
The musician reached out again this month with the party invite, and this time, Alabama responded. “Ur like 40,” she told him.
“I just wanted to say i really like ur music and sorry for messaging and I’m 20,” Sierota allegedly wrote back.
Alabama replied: “Ok but u understand I’m a child?”
In a statement to The Blast, Barker, 43, condemned Sierota’s outreaches. “When I found out a 20-year-old man was trying to get in touch with my 13-year-old daughter by filling her Instagram messages with party invites and compliments I was disgusted,” he said. “That’s predatory behavior and there is nothing cool, normal or OK about it at all.”
For his part, Sierota previously told Page Six that Alabama was just one of “many” people he had invited to his “parents’ big family BBQ” and that it “wasn’t until she responded that I realized her age at which point I apologized to her.”
“I’m really sorry and feel very badly about this,” he continued. “I didn’t realize she was a minor and assumed she was my age. 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.”
