Swedish dance music producer and DJ Ida Engberg has decried tributes to Erick Morillo in the wake of the “I Like To Move It” artist’s death.
As tributes to the late DJ—who was found dead on September 1st, 2020 in Miami Beach—continue to pour in via social media, Engberg took to Instagram to share a statement urging the music community not to forget about his transgressions. Morillo had recently been arrested and charged with sexual battery on a woman after the results of a rape kit came back and tested positive for his DNA.
“Our dance music community should not be brushing the behavior of Eric [sic] Morillo under the carpet. We owe it to all women of our generation and to generations to come. We should not glorify rapists,” Engberg wrote. “Sickening to see how star struck our community is.”
“Shame on us,” she continued. “After a long late night discussion in Jamie Jones comment field yesterday I feel that this needed to be said out loud and clear. No means no and rape is rape.”
After Grammy-winning Welsh DJ Jamie Jones shared a tribute on Instagram and received backlash for calling him a “true legend,” he went on to publish a second post in which he apologized to those who were offended, writing, “I can only imagine how much courage it takes to come forward and speak out when you have been sexually assaulted or abused in any way.”
“That is why I want to apologise to anyone who was offended by my post in remembrance of Erick Morillo,” Jones continued. “My words were truly mean to share the Erick I had personally known over the ear, and although I know very little about the case against him, the last thing I wanted to do was make light or normalise the very very serious charges he was facing. I acknowledge that I was wrong to be insensitive of the situation as a whole and for that I’m sorry.”
When a number of users came to Jones’ defense in the post’s comment section, saying he didn’t need to apologize for sharing his sentiments about his deceased friend, Engberg entered the fray and shared a harrowing 2006 encounter with Morillo in which he allegedly drugged her with MDMA against her will.
“I met [Erick] Morillo in Ibiza back in 2006. Once in an after party at his house I sat outside in a sun bed talking to a friend of mine when he approached me from behind, pulled my head back, held my forehead against the sunbed and poured a drink into my mouth against my will,” Engberg wrote. “I got upset and asked what that was. He laughed and said ‘it’s MDMA’. I said, can I please chose [sic] for myself if I want to do drugs or not. I got up and left the party.”
“Later I heard from a friend that he had asked all the girls who would not get naked to leave the party,” she continued. “I met him after and he just laughed and said ‘well you were not going to fuck me anyway were you’. He also said I wasn’t welcome back to his house. Years after, when I was more ‘known’ he was always so sweet and polite. I told him he was the worst and most disrespectful person I met in our scene and always refused talking to him. This is just my story. It may not seem like a big deal to some but I spent a season in Ibiza in 2006 and I heard countless of similar stories. He had the worst reputation. I have not experienced anything anywhere near that.”
Prior to his death, Morillo was scheduled to appear in court on September 4th, 2020. At the time of this article’s publishing, the official cause of death has not yet been revealed. However, the Miami Herald reports that authorities are investigating a possible drug overdose.
