Evan Dando, the singer-songwriter who co-founded the Lemonheads four decades ago, entered a hospital on Thursday after news broke that he’d reportedly sent a fan unsolicited videos of himself masturbating.
“Evan Dando has long struggled with mental health issues dating back to his childhood,” the artist’s rep tells Rolling Stone. “He’s been admitted to a local hospital where he’s receiving comprehensive help from experienced doctors and mental health professionals.”
A fan identified as “Dawn” on journalist Tony Ortega’s substack, The Underground Bunker, said she’d reached out to the artist in social media DMs in October to congratulate him on releasing Love Chant, the Lemonheads’ first album of original music since The Lemonheads in 2006. Dando reportedly replied, “Cool I’m sorry I’m an exhibitionist.” The next day, she said she checked her DMs to find video of him masturbating. “It’s him sitting in a basement or something, and he’s fully masturbating,” Dawn told Ortega. “You can see his penis, and his face. It’s definitely him. He’s filming it from a weird angle.” The Underground Bunker published SFW screen shots from Dando’s exchanges with Dawn.
Dando, 58, lives in Brazil with his wife Antonia Teixeira. He is stepfather to Teixeira’s three children.
“It’s so gross,” Dawn told The Underground Bunker. “I don’t want him to do this to anyone else. It’s just a gross feeling.”
Dando, who was an alternative-rock sensation in the Nineties, wrote about his mental health struggles in his autobiography, Rumors of My Demise, which came out last year. In the book, he described how cocaine and heroin addiction blockaded his creativity. “Most of my real friends retreated, hoping things would change,” he wrote in one chapter. “The rest got a kick out of watching me unravel. I was in horrible shape, losing teeth, and living off cheeseburgers … and a $200 daily drug habit.”
The Lemonheads have tour dates scheduled later this year in the U.K., though the one U.S. date is supporting the Avett Brothers at Red Rocks.
