Sumner Stroh Speaks Out on Adam Levine Scandal

Nearly four years after a sexting scandal turned her world upside down, still gets emotional reflecting on the most painful moments of her life.

'It was an absolute sh*tstorm, that period of my life,' the 26-year-old model-turned-singer said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.

In 2022, Stroh publicly condemned  over an  that consisted of the two sending steamy messages to one another while the Maroon 5 frontman's wife  was pregnant with the couple's third child. 

Levine has denied having a full-blown 'affair' but confessed he 'crossed a line.' Stroh went on to claim she felt 'manipulated' by the rockstar.

But now, she's ready to take accountability for her part - and show she's more than a scandalous headline. 

'I don't want to sound like a victim,' she told the Daily Mail. 'I hurt a lot of people, so I don't want to by any means say like, "Oh, woe is me." 

'I know it's a conversation that is stuck with me and I have to live with that, but I believe that people are more than their mistakes and more than their past.'

In an attempt to move on with her life, Stroh is now pursuing a career in music.

Some critics may think the former model is trying to capitalize off the scandal, but she is not bothered by the naysayers, telling us: 'I've already heard all of that.'

'I think that I've had to relinquish control of what other people think and what they're going to say. Because at the end of the day, I can't control that. All I can control is showing up authentically as myself,' she said.

'I just realized I'm either going to do what I love and people are going to say what they've always said about women for hundreds and hundreds of years or I can live forever in fear and never have pursued what I love, and I think that is a much more miserable existence for me.'

But even Stroh's own music sometimes mirrors what happened.   

In her new single, Miss America, she sings, 'I don't even need to wear a crown / Can't wear me out.'

'"You can't wear me out' as I'm actively getting worn the f**k down and facing setback after setback,' Stroh said of the lyrics, before confessing with a self-deprecating laugh: 'It makes me cry when I listen to my own music, which is ridiculous.'

The truth is that the fallout from the scandal, combined with other personal issues in Stroh's life at the time, pushed her into a dark place.

'It was traumatic, just the level of public scrutiny,' she said. 

'The bandwagon effect and the whole cancelation of it all, it really gave me time to look inward and process that shame, process that guilt, process even childhood traumas.'

Stroh, who hails from Texas, grew up within a very traditional family who urged her to pursue a law degree and tried to steer her away from a move to Los Angeles.

She made the move to the West Coast anyway, as she had aspirations of being part of a girl group at the time, but it all backfired when she became involved with Levine. 

'The drones flying over my family's house ... that affected my entire family. So that physical safety aspect, for not myself, but for my family was something that was really hard, not for just me, but also my family,' Stroh told the Daily Mail. 

Levine's family - particularly his wife, Prinsloo - were also affected.

Stroh took to TikTok in 2022 to issue a mea culpa to the Victoria's Secret model and said, 'I’m not the one getting hurt in this. It’s Behati and her children. And for that, I’m so, so sorry.'

Despite her regrets, Stroh now sees the setbacks as 'pivotal to becoming the artist' that she is today and owns all of her past mistakes.

'I have f**king put blood, sweat, and tears into choosing myself and that's okay because we're all inherently flawed. 

'I've been working my a** off to separate myself from that and grow and learn. But also, I'm not going to sit here and say that nothing ever happened and that's just part of my story and that's something I have to live with.'

Stroh told Daily Mail, 'I have f*cking put blood, sweat, and tears into choosing myself and that's okay because we're all inherently flawed'