A girl who claims to have had a bootleg relationship with Steven Tyler within the Seventies when she was a minor has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Aerosmith singer, accusing him of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional misery. The lawsuit was filed following California laws that briefly waived statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse allegations.
Within the swimsuit filed in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, the plaintiff Julia Holcomb alleges that Tyler satisfied Holcomb’s mom to grant him guardianship over her when she was 16 years previous, which consequently allowed her to reside with him and interact in a sexual relationship. She claims they have been collectively from 1973 till about three years later. The swimsuit itself doesn’t title Tyler, naming the defendants as Defendant Doe 1 and Does 2 by means of 50. However Holcomb — who Rolling Stone talked about in a 1976 profile of the band in reference to Tyler’s romantic life — has been public about her expertise with Tyler prior to now, and the lawsuit straight quotes from Tyler’s personal memoir. In his guide, with out stating a reputation, Tyler equally says he “nearly took a teen bride” and that “her mother and father fell in love with me, signed a paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state. I took her on tour with me.”
“I would like this motion to reveal an trade that protects superstar offenders, to cleanse and maintain accountable an trade that each exploited and allowed me to be exploited for years, together with so many different naïve and susceptible children and adults,” Holcomb, who filed underneath her present title Julia Misley, stated in a press release relating to her swimsuit. Within the assertion, she additionally referenced the laws permitting her to come back ahead with the swimsuit and the “exploitation” and Trauma she claims she confronted from Tyler. “As a result of I do know that I’m not the one one who suffered abuse within the music trade, I really feel it’s time for me to take this stand and convey this motion, to talk up and stand in solidarity with the opposite survivors.”
Within the swimsuit, Holcomb alleges that she “was powerless to withstand” Tyler’s “energy, fame and substantial monetary means, and that Tyler “coerced and persuaded Plaintiff into believing this was a ‘romantic love affair’”. Holcomb alleges that she met Tyler (who would’ve been 25 on the time of their assembly) simply after her sixteenth birthday when Aerosmith performed a live performance in Portland, Oregon, in 1973. Tyler, in keeping with the swimsuit, took Holcomb again to his resort room, the place they mentioned Holcomb’s age. After he allegedly requested why she was out all evening by herself, Tyler and Holcomb talked about her troubles at dwelling. He then “carried out numerous acts of prison sexual conduct upon” her earlier than sending her dwelling in a taxi the subsequent morning, the lawsuit states.
Tyler additionally allegedly purchased Holcomb her personal airplane ticket to his subsequent Aerosmith present in Seattle since she was a minor and couldn’t legally journey with him throughout state strains, the swimsuit says. After the Seattle present, Tyler allegedly carried out extra sexual acts on her, and Holcomb flew again to Portland the subsequent morning.
By 1974, because the swimsuit alleges, Tyler satisfied Holcomb’s mom to permit him to turn out to be her guardian, which might permit him to extra simply journey together with her with out prison prosecution — a timeline that matches Tyler’s personal feedback from his 2011 memoir. Tyler allegedly advised Holcomb’s mom he would offer higher help than she was getting at dwelling, promising to enroll her in class and provides her medical care. Tyler “didn’t meaningfully observe by means of on these guarantees and as an alternative continued to journey with, assault and supply alcohol and medicines to Plaintiff,” the swimsuit claims.
Holcomb additional alleges that she was pregnant with Tyler’s son in 1975 when she was 17 years previous however acquired an abortion after Tyler insisted she terminate the being pregnant following an condo hearth. In making the argument, he cited smoke inhalation and lack of oxygen to the child. Although the swimsuit claims a medical skilled advised her the unborn child was not harmed by the fireplace.
In accordance with the lawsuit, Holcomb was hesitant about going by means of with the abortion, however Tyler had threatened to cease supporting her if she didn’t proceed with the process. After the abortion, she allegedly left Tyler and went again to Portland to vary her life. She turned a religious Catholic, met her husband, and buried her earlier experiences with Tyler till he wrote about them in his guide.
Holcomb says within the swimsuit that her life was additional disrupted with the publication of Tyler’s memoir, which, with out Holcomb’s consent, referenced his time with an underage lady and subjected her to “involuntary infamy” whereas framing the alleged abuse as a “romantic, loving relationship,” the swimsuit says. Tyler has additionally spoken of a relationship with an underage lady each in his personal memoir and in Aerosmith’s autobiography. The Aerosmith autobiography, printed in 1997, references the connection, the condo hearth, and abortion, however Tyler refers back to the lady as Diana and stated she was 14 on the time they met. In his memoir, nonetheless, he says she was 16, and he writes in regards to the hearth however not the abortion. Within the swimsuit, Holcomb says she’s talked about within the memoir’s acknowledgments which additional eliminated her anonymity. (The guide’s acknowledgments embody Julia Halcomb, which could possibly be a misspelling of her title.)
“She was sixteen, she knew easy methods to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it,” Tyler wrote in his memoir earlier than saying he turned the lady’s guardian to keep away from getting arrested if he took her out of state earlier than detailing their sexual endeavors a couple of pages later. “With my unhealthy self being twenty-six and he or she barely sufficiently old to drive and attractive as hell, I simply fell head over heels in love together with her. She was a cute skinny little tomboy dressed up as Little Bo Peep. She was my coronary heart’s need, my companion in crimes of ardour.”
The lawsuit isn’t the primary time Holcomb has shared these particulars about her alleged expertise with Tyler. Previous to the criticism, she detailed most of the identical allegations in 2011 for the far-right, anti-abortion web site Lifesitenews, and he or she has gone on applications like Tucker Carlson’s present to share her expertise as fodder in opposition to pro-choice advocacy. Holcomb additionally spoke of the expertise within the 2021 documentary Look Away, which targeted on sexual abuse in rock music tradition.
“I turned misplaced in a rock and roll tradition. In Steven’s world it was intercourse, medication, and rock and roll, however it appeared no much less chaotic than the world I left behind. I didn’t understand it but, however I’d barely make it out alive,” Holcomb wrote in 2011. “I couldn’t consider he was even asking me to have an abortion at this stage. He spent over an hour urgent me to go forward and have the abortion. He stated that I used to be too younger to have a child and it will have mind injury as a result of I had been within the hearth and brought medication. “
Holcomb’s swimsuit comes within the ultimate days of California’s Little one Victims Act, a 2019 piece of laws that lifted the statute of limitations and granted a three-year lookback interval for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to come back ahead with their allegations. The deadline to file a lawsuit is December 31, 2022.
A rep for Tyler didn’t instantly reply to Rolling Stone‘s request for remark.
New York has related laws with the Grownup Survivors Act, giving New Yorkers a 12 months to file lawsuits over sexual misconduct they allegedly skilled in maturity, no matter when the claimed incident occurred. Since taking impact final month, two ladies have accused the late report govt Ahmet Ertegun of sexual assault within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties. California additionally handed laws lifting the statute of limitations on grownup sexual abuse circumstances for a 12 months beginning on January 1st, 2023.