The Artemas controversy, explained

Warning: This article contains mention of abuse and drugs, please proceed with caution.

Popular singer-songwriter, Artemas recently came under fire for allegations of abuse made by his ex-girlfriend, but what exactly did she say?

Artemas shot to fame towards the end of last year and the first few months of this year. If you don’t recognize the name you’ll undoubtedly recognize his tune, “I Like The Way You Kiss Me,” the song has been all over TikTok, from thirst edits of fictional characters to lip sync videos, people are obsessed with the song. According to an article from Purple Sneakers, over 2 million videos on the app have used Artemas’ song.

The Artemas controversy

However, the singer’s name has been trending on TikTok for a different reason recently due to allegations from an ex. While it seems her videos no longer exist, many on the app did see the original allegations in which she claimed that Artemas abused her and got her addicted to certain drugs; she also said that the vocals to “I Like The Way You Kiss Me” were actually hers, but that the musician stole them and did not give her any publishing credits for it.

These are serious allegations and many have vowed to stop listening to the musician and their music and encouraged others to do so. Artemas denies the claims from his ex – in a screenshot shared to Reddit that supposedly comes from the artist’s Discord server, he claims that the accusations are “baseless” and that the person making the claims is actually harassing him.

I can’t tell u how awful it is to read so many comments that are just flat out lies and I’m in a state of shock rn. Of course she did not write any of my music, of course she is not singing any of my music and of course most importantly I did not lay a finger on her.”

Artemas made some accusations of his own

The musician went on to claim his ex was stalking him and attempting to ruin his life by any means possible. He provided screenshots of text messages to back up the claims, in the screenshots we see that the ex planned to get Artemas canceled. However, some more skeptical Redditors have claimed that the texts look edited which raises questions as to why the singer would provide doctored photos as evidence, but then again, it’s hard to tell if that’s really the case or if it’s just the image compression.

In the end, it’s currently a he said/she said situation. Those who have been keeping up with the controversy are split into the die-hard defenders of Artemas, and those who believe his ex’s story, but the fact is, there’s nothing to prove either side is telling the truth right now.