- Tokata Iron Eyes told Insider the "Flash" actor Ezra Miller never groomed or abused her.
- She spoke to Insider as part of an investigation detailing new allegations that Miller ran a cult in Iceland and is traveling the US with guns.
Tokata Iron Eyes says 29-year-old "Flash" actor Ezra Miller never groomed or abused her.
Iron Eyes, an 18-year-old Lakota activist, spoke out about the allegations for the first time as part of Insider's investigation into Miller. Tokata's parents, Chase Iron Eyes and Sara Jumping Eagle, say Miller has been "grooming" their daughter since she was 12. They said that this past year, Miller left bruises on Tokata's arms and cheeks, restricted access to her phone, and verbally abused her. In June, Tokata's parents obtained a temporary protection order demanding Miller stay away from their child.
In text messages to Insider, Tokata said that these allegations were "a disgusting and irresponsible smear campaign" against Miller, and that Miller "in multiple cases has done the right thing and stood in protection of others."
Miller has known Tokata since she was 12, when they traveled to North Dakota to support the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016. Over the next six years, Miller kept in touch with the young activist, promising to help her music career and sometimes stopping by her home out of the blue, her parents said. Over time, they said, Miller's interest in their daughter intensified.
In December 2021, Tokata and Miller went to stay with a family friend in South Dakota. During this visit, a member of the family friend's household said she saw Tokata and Miller having sex on a bed outside. Tokata told Insider this was "so very false."
Later that month, Miller returned to the Vermont farm with Tokata in tow. On January 29, Miller and their house guests called Tokata's parents to tell them Tokata was incapacitated after having taken LSD four days prior.
Iron Eyes and Jumping Eagle flew to Vermont the next day. They said they found Tokata "out of it" and "incoherent," screaming so relentlessly that she lost her voice for several days. She had bruises on her arms and left cheek, they said, and she didn't have her phone or ID. Another person at the farm told Tokata's parents that the bruising occurred when Miller pinned Tokata to the ground and screamed at her for failing to respond to a question, the protection order said.
Tokata told Insider she took "a microdose" of LSD and that the bruises were a result of self-harm following a close friend's death. She added that some of the bruises may have occurred when her parents "violently dragged" her out of Miller's house. (Jumping Eagle said Tokata was not "dragged" at any point.)
Oliver Ignatius, a longtime music collaborator of Miller's, said he witnessed what he described as Miller's "verbally abusive" treatment of the 18-year-old in both Hawaii and Vermont. In Hawaii in March, the actor confiscated Tokata's phone "for her safety" and pressured her to change her name to Gibson, Ignatius said. Tokata told Insider she goes by both Tokata and Gibson and came up with Gibson herself.
At the Vermont farm in May, Miller again hid Tokata's phone from her and at one point screamed obscenities at her for wearing makeup, Ignatius said. He recalled Miller saying: "What the fuck are you doing? Putting on this fucking clown paint?"
Tokata said she was never screamed at. "That was queer dialogue about a badly applied rouge on my part, which I appreciated," she said. "I think the fact that a catty comment made by a queer person about makeup being considered abuse is actually quite homophobic rhetoric."
Over the past six months, Miller has been driving around the US carrying at least one gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, paranoid about being followed by the FBI and the Ku Klux Klan, people told Insider. Tokata said the vest was "a fashionable safety measure in response to actual attacks and received death threats."
Tokata's mother said she and her husband have been motivated to sound the alarm about Miller, who they say has a pattern of targeting and grooming vulnerable young people.
"Our primary concern is the safety of our daughter," Jumping Eagle said. "We want other people to be warned."