—To you, Zach Crystal is innocent, of everything.
—Everything. It makes sense. It makes total sense. Look, these days, the media are frightened to dispute claims by women against high-profile individuals. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? From where I’m standing, no one has proved anything yet. All I’ve seen is people trying to get money from the estate of a dead man.
—I want to talk about Zach Crystal’s death, if that’s OK with you? I know it’s a hard subject. Especially for someone for whom he did so much good.
—It’s OK. I think it’s good to discuss it, to be honest. That’s what I learned from Zach, from the therapy we did together – that you need to be able to talk about these sorts of things.
—There are many theories about the fire at Crystal Forest. Do you believe he did it? That his death was suicide?
—It’s really hard, because I think when Zach Crystal returned, he wasn’t ready. Not quite. His best friend had died. I met James Cryer when I was at Crystal Forest, you know? He was always there when Zach was away at a meeting or a rehearsal or whatever. There was nothing that was too much for him. He was a fan as well, you know? He’d known Zach back in the day, back from Barlheath, where he grew up. They had a synergy, those two, and I think when James was found dead in the forest Zach found it hard to come back from that. I think that’s why he’d been gone for so long.
—Where do you think he went?
—I think he was searching.
—Searching for what? Something inside himself, something spiritual?
—If you watch that interview he did on Ruby, when he returned, she asks him the same thing and he says he was preparing for the new album, the tour, but he also says something interesting – he says he was ‘searching for answers’. He says he was ‘searching for ways I could help people better’. I think that’s beautiful, don’t you? That’s the thing about Zach – everything he did was always for others, never himself. I won’t pretend I know where he went, but I know that when he came back, he was full of new life. The whole thing was ruined by Ian Julius and the rest of them. Zach’s return was spoiled by the actions of a petty, jealous man and five women who wanted money. It’s just so obvious to anyone who can see it. The problem is people don’t want to see it. That’s the issue here – people want to see Zach in a certain way. I think – and it’s hard for me to say this but many of us in the Zach Crystal fans community believe it – we think Zach took his own life because he understood what he was about to face and he couldn’t handle it. He wanted to help people and that lot had made sure he couldn’t.
—You think the backlash would have been too much?
—I think the mainstream media were gearing up to take a side and it wasn’t Zach’s. That’s how they work though, isn’t it? If it bleeds, it leads.
—You’re no fan of the media and the way you and other fans have been portrayed, right?
—It’s so fucking lazy; we’re cranks, we’re crazy, just because we stan Zach Crystal, et cetera. But look online – look at the Zach Crystal community and see how many people saw things in the weeks leading up to the fire. So many of us saw it. I certainly did. After I’d been in Crystal Forest, my mind was more … open.
—Really? What was it you saw?
—I hadn’t seen it for years, not since I was twelve. But that’s not important. Let’s move on, shall we?
—Can you tell me a bit more about what you mean by ‘saw something’?
—Look, it’s not just me, OK? It’s not just me. That’s another thing that talking to Zach helped me understand. He helped a lot of us understand that there are … things … out there…
I begin to open my mouth but Sasha’s face fills the screen, her eyes wide and teeth bared.
—You look. You look online. On the forums, on Twitter, all over. They’re all there. Fans all over the world. They saw it too. In the weeks and months leading up to the fire, we all saw it, or something like it. You think I’m crazy, but it’s not just me. That’s why that video that came out was just so … I dunno. It wasn’t right.
I’ve actually looked. r/ZachCrystal on Reddit is swamped with current discussions, but if you look back into the archives, there are indeed reports of sightings of something that is called a ‘Frithghast’. All of these alleged sightings, however, are mentioned after Zach Crystal’s death. Searching the word on Twitter gets a few results, mainly to do with #folklorethursday or a Pokémon character with a similar name.
I ask Sasha what it is – what is this ‘thing’ that everyone saw. She shakes her head, stares off into the middle distance.
—I can’t speak for any of them, but I won’t forget it in a hurry. I saw it before I hit my head. I saw it before the fire. I woke up for no good reason, in the middle of the night, and looked out of my bedroom window. There it was, stood there in the street. If I see it again … well, I know my time’s up.
—Can you describe what you saw?
—It was like an animal … a horse or a deer, something long-necked but with horns on its head. It was all rotted away, like a skeleton. Maybe it was a dream, a nightmare? I don’t think so though; it felt real. I was scared, I turned away, didn’t dare look again. All I can see in my head is that thing looking up at me with that animal skull for a head. I still shiver when I think about it. I’ve got goose bumps now. The worst thing about it was that it gave me this feeling in my bones, like a black cloud, like I knew something bad was going to happen to me cos I saw it. The next day was the day I took a tumble in the kitchen. Somewhere inside me I was almost relieved. That’s fucked up, right? When I was in the hospital, Zach was the only one I felt comfortable telling about it. I dunno why. I have no idea. It just seemed right. I still wasn’t quite sure who he was, remember. But I told him and I expected him to laugh or tell me it was a dream or the usual shite that adults say.
But he didn’t. He looked shocked. He looked scared. He said he understood. He said he and I needed to talk, just the two of us. I remember he whispered it. Zach told me he saw it too, when he was my age. It was the same – an animal, like a shadow. It always appeared, he said, the day before something bad happened. I bet he saw it before his parents died in 2009, before his friend died a few years back, and I bet you any money, he saw it before Ian Julius ruined his life.
He called it a Frithghast.
I want to break away from Sasha’s rather incredible account for a moment to address what she’s just described. The Frithghast is an entity almost exclusive to the Scottish Highlands, but very little is known about it. From the limited information I can find, the Frithghast is similar, in essence, to the black dog motif, which is common in folklore around the UK. Most commonly, sighting this ghostly black creature with pale, glowing eyes is an omen of death or grave misfortune. It is sometimes thought of as a shape-shifter. More recently, the figure was appropriated by JK Rowling in the Harry Potter series, and known as a ‘grim’. Scotland has its own black-dog legends: the Muckle Black Tyke is thought to be the devil himself in canine form.
This black, half-rotted deer or stag seems to be connected solely to Colliecrith National Park. The Cairngorm mountains have their own spectre, known as Am Fear Liath Mòr, who haunts the summit of Ben MacDhui, but has largely been attributed to a phenomena known as a ‘broken bow’, when a person’s shadow is cast upon and magnified by clouds opposite the sun.
The Frithghast was reported as far back as the 1800s, mainly by game hunters, and was consequently presumed to be a deterrent manufactured by an eccentric English landowner to scare poachers from entering the vast aspen forest of Colliecrith.
‘I saw a terrible thing emerging from its cursed lair,’ reported Lord Percy Bikerstaffe in 1873. ‘Not a sound did it make and all that I heard was the whisper of the wind through the leaves, as if in some merciless mirth at the fright that filled me.’
When pressed, Bickerstaffe, rumoured to be an occultist, among many other things, remarked, ‘I fear I have awoken some ancient spi
rit, laid to sleep by some forest wych long in the past. For it followed me, that awful ghast, for miles, always drifting like fog between the trees, though the very light of hell that glowed through that empty skull did not leave my heart when night fell.’
Bickerstaffe is said to have vanished in the same forest, but his antics and death are widely attributed by scholars to untreated syphilis.
It appears that the legend of the Frithghast was born a long time before Bickerstaffe claims to have seen it. It was predominantly used as a cautionary tale to keep children from wandering in the treacherous ancient woodlands of Colliecrith.
There’s no question, however, that Sasha believes what she saw, and who am I to dispute it? I don’t feel like there’s much point in arguing about these types of details. Sasha has been good enough to speak with me candidly and I want to leave the interview on a positive note.
—It’s hard for people who aren’t true Zach Crystal fans to really understand some of the nuances.
I think I do. I think I understand that for people like Sasha, there was more to Zach Crystal than a man who made music. I think that for Sasha, Zach Crystal was a symbol of her redemption, of her break with her past. Zach Crystal was there for Sasha when her parents were not, like he was there for a great many young people. It’s definitely hard to make this measure up with some of the accusations levelled against the star.
Sasha claims to be someone who has actually spent time at Crystal Forest, and to an extent, was exposed to Crystal personally. I’m interested in what she mentioned about certain ‘chosen’ girls accompanying Crystal into the forest itself. Why did he do this? Did it have anything to do with this mysterious Frithghast?
I now wonder, with Zach Crystal being gone, how long Sasha will stick to her assurance that she won’t eventually sell her story to the press.
I believe Sasha when she says nothing untoward happened between her and Crystal when she was twelve. That doesn’t mean, however, that nothing happened with other girls.
I think speaking to Sasha has provided some balance in our investigation into the case of Zach Crystal. Fans of Crystal are dedicated to their cause and defensive of their hero in the wake of the allegations that are springing up around him like weeds. I feel a degree of sympathy for them because, as I’ve said before, no one but Zach Crystal is able to confirm the truth.
Unfortunately, due to legal issues concerning their case against the Crystal estate, the five women who we’ve discussed have all respectfully declined to speak to me. They say they don’t want to do anything that could jeopardise their case against Crystal. This I understand.
I think that there will be some who are unhappy about Sasha Stewart’s appearance in this series, but I believe it is important to include her. If Ian Julius gets his say, then so does Sasha. Both claim to have had personal experiences of the star and both are on the opposite ends of the spectrum of opinion about him. Where Ian Julius believes Crystal to be a predator, Sasha Stewart believes him innocent of all charges.
There is much to be explored in between.
Next, we need to try and get closer to the inner circle of Zach Crystal. I want to speak to someone who has more of an experience than an opinion. This is the way I believe we’ll get closer to the facts.
In the next episode, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. I put out some feelers and, of course, asked the Crystal estate for comment. They have, so far, ignored my request.
The person who replied, however, comes as somewhat of a surprise. Like everyone else on Six Stories, I’ve not paid anyone anything and I’m not here to push an agenda. My next interviewee told me that’s why he was willing to talk.
He’s also not afraid of any negative press, social-media attention or anything else that could potentially come his way after talking about Zach Crystal.
You’ll understand why in episode three.
Until next time…
RUBY
Episode 246: Zach Crystal
Legendary Presenter Ruby Rendall’s exclusive interview with pop megastar Zach Crystal. More >
1 hr 45 • 9pm 20th Jul 2019 • Available for 28 days
RR: Welcome back and I tell you what, I’m going to get my husband to get straight into the garden to build me my own tree house.
[Laughter]
RR: Oh I’m serious! I want my own.
ZC: A Ruby Forest?
RR: [laughing] That’s right, we’re both precious stones.
ZC: [giggling] You’re worth more than me though. Rubies are pretty, crystals are…
[‘Gorgeous!’ is shouted by an audience member.]
ZC: Thank you. You’re all the best.
[Cheering]
RR: Zach, it’s clear that the world is so happy you’ve returned … after more than a year, Zach. We were worried.
[Cheering]
RR: We really were. We were scared.
ZC: [blushing, shaking his head] I know, I know. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
RR: We’ve come to the question you knew I was going to have to ask you. It’s the biggie, the one everyone wants to know.
ZC: I’m ready, Ruby.
[Laughter]
RR: You disappeared in the spring of 2018. It was after a concert, would I be right in saying that? A concert that was marred by tragedy.
ZC: That’s right, yes, in Hyde Park, part of the Lazy Dayz benefit festival.
RR: You were headlining that event. It was for charity as well, and that’s what made it all the more tragic.
ZC: That’s right – a charity very close to my heart, helping homeless young people.
RR: Just to explain, in case there are those who are unaware: Lazy Dayz was an all-day event with many other acts performing, culminating with you as the last act of the day.
ZC: What’s terrible about the whole thing is that we were going to finish the show with everyone up on stage, singing ‘World in Our Hands’.
RR: You had cowritten the song with Ed Sheeran, among others. That’s right, isn’t it?
ZC: Ruby, it was an honour to work with those musicians. It got to number one and stayed there and did so much good.
RR: But you, tragically, never got to perform it.
ZC: That’s right, Ruby. It was an awful, awful thing.
RR: Sadly, there was a terrible accident, an explosion in the lighting rig, and two of the technicians -– Peter Williamson and Gavin Jermaine – fell to their deaths.
ZC: We were all devastated. It was right that our set didn’t go ahead that night. My love goes out to those two men’s beautiful families. I just wish I could have done something.
RR: And Zach, this wasn’t that long after the tragic accident back at Crystal Forest, involving your friend and aide. It feels like all these things happened very quickly. That must have been hard. Did this go some way to explain why you decided to disappear?
ZC: It … Yes and no. It wasn’t so much the events themselves, but more about my own guilt. When I was away, I told no one where I was going, not even my own family. I was searching for answers to it all. I wanted to return better equipped, you see. I was searching for ways I could help people better.
RR: It seems to me like you were carrying a great deal of guilt. Neither of these events were your fault…
ZC: Not the events themselves, but I should have been … been more aware, been more mindful of what was going to happen. I think when you grow up very religiously, in a religious environment, you end up with a lot of guilt. I felt guilty for not doing anything to stop what happened.
RR: Are you saying you should have been able to maybe predict or prevent those tragedies?
ZC: I’m saying I should have been more open to the signs of what was to come.
RR: Signs?
[The studio lights flicker on and off.]
RR: Oh! I must apologise, a few gremlins in the—
[The shrieks in the audience begin up again. There is a scuffle as a few members of security pass behind Ruby and Zach.]
RR: I hope everyone’s … OK…
[There are a few stuttering shots of the audience. A few people are involuntarily twitching in their seats and letting out little screams. Security and studio staff are trying to quell the noise.]
RR: …Anyway … er … yes, I understand how hard all this must have been for you and I imagine it’s difficult for you to talk about it now.
ZC: It’s good to talk about things, Ruby. That’s something I’ve learned in my life, that it’s good to talk things out, rather than keep them bottled inside. If more people talked, more people would listen and the world would be a better, more understanding place.
RR: That’s beautiful. Such a beautiful thought, and I hope, after this, that people do talk more.
ZC: I hope so too, I really do. Please…
[Zach turns to the audience and raises both hands. The noise and commotion stops instantly.]
RR: There’s something that is being talked about among your fan base – something I’m not quite sure I understand properly. I wonder if you’d be able to help me?
ZC: Help you understand?
RR: Please. I think it links to what you were saying before about this idea of guilt, of foresight and culpability. You see, many of your fans say that there’s something they see before bad things happen to them. You’re nodding, this isn’t new to you?
ZC: I think a lot of my fans are opening their minds. You see, when you’re a kid, a little kid, your mind is totally open. You see everything that’s there, regardless of whether anyone else believes in it. Why do you think so many kids see fairies? Why do so many kids have imaginary friends? It’s only when you grow up that you’re conditioned into thinking otherwise; you’re told that magic doesn’t exist.
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