Grammy-winning contemporary Christian recording artist Michael Tait is coming clean after being accused of sexually assaulting several men, including young, male musicians. Tait, a former member of the Christian music groups DC Talk and Newsboys, released “My Confession” in a statement posted to social media.
“Recent reports of my reckless and destructive behavior, including drug and alcohol abuse and sexual activity, are sadly, largely true,” said Tait, who has supported both presidential campaigns of President Donald Trump. “I am ashamed of my life choices and actions. I will simply call it what God calls it–sin.”
Tait, a 59-year-old native of Washington, D.C., is wildly successful in the Christian music industry, having sold 18 million albums and won four Grammy Awards. Much of his music has encouraged young Christian listeners to resist liberalism and live a life of sobriety, abstinence, and heterosexuality, reports The Guardian, which published an in-depth investigation of his alleged sexual misconduct and drug abuse.
Tait’s music was also part of the soundtrack to Trump’s right-wing Make America Great Again, or MAGA, political movement. His song with Newsboys, “God’s Not Dead,” became a MAGA fixture. The 2011 song’s popularity emerged during the conservative evangelical resistance to Barack Obama’s presidency.
Tait is credited with helping to connect Trump to white evangelical voters, who played a significant role in his 2016 election. During the 2016 election cycle, Tait, invited by Trump’s friend Pastor Paula White, was among a group of Christians who prayed over Trump before a Florida campaign stop. Newsboys also notably performed for Trump at the White House in 2019.
“I love you, I support you, and I’m one of the growing number of African Americans who love you,” Tait once told Trump during a 2019 video expressing his support for Trump’s prison reform policies.
According to The Guardian, Tait is accused of engaging in a pattern of manipulative and abusive behavior with young male musicians in the early 2000s. Some of the alleged victims claim Tait offered the “possibility of career or artistic opportunities.” When some men rebuffed him, Tait allegedly cut off all contact with them.
The singer is accused of hosting parties at his home in Nashville, where he would encourage the men to drink alcohol and use drugs before he allegedly made sexual advances. At least two men said they were secretly drugged and were left in and out of consciousness, and were unable to consent to sexual acts. The alleged male victims claim Tait touched them without their permission.
In his “Confession,” Tait admits to once drinking “far too much alcohol” and touching men in “an unwanted sensual way.” He revealed that in early January, he spent six weeks in a Utah treatment center for his cocaine abuse and has been sober for six months. The Christian artist said he was “ashamed” for living a double life and lying to his family, friends and fans.
“I have hurt so many people in so many ways, and I will live with that shameful reality for the rest of my life,” he wrote. “I accept the consequences of my sin and am committed to continuing the hard work of repentance and healing work.”
