Steven Tyler from Aerosmith has been accused of sexually assaulting a minor in a new lawsuit from an ex-girlfriend.
The complaint filed by Julia Holcomb alleges that Tyler abused Holcomb when she was just 16 years old, and also claimed that he also forced her to have an abortion when she became pregnant.
According to Rolling Stone, Holcomb claims that when the couple started dating in 1973— Tyler was 25 and Holcomb was 16—Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to give him custody of her daughter. In the lawsuit, Tyler is not named by name, but is directly quoted from the singer’s memoirs, where he said that he “almost took a teenage bride” and that her parents “signed a paper so that I would get custody so that I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of the state. I took her on tour with me.”
The lawsuit alleges that Tyler “coerced and convinced [Holcomb] to believe it was a ‘romantic love affair'” and then claimed that after meeting at an Aerosmith concert in 1973, Tyler “committed various acts of criminal sexual conduct” on her. In a hotel.
Despite the fact that his custody of Holcomb required him to provide her with proper medical care, the lawsuit alleges that Tyler “failed to fulfill these promises and instead continued to travel, assault and supply the plaintiff with alcohol and drugs.”
Holcomb also claims that Tyler forced her to have an abortion in 1975 when she was 17, citing smoke poisoning from an apartment fire, despite the fact that the lawsuit claimed that a medical professional told her that the fire did not hurt the baby.
In his 1997 memoir, Tyler wrote about a teenage romance, not naming Holcomb, but referring to a house fire and custody. “She was sixteen, she could shit, and she didn’t have a hair on her,” he wrote, discussing how he became her guardian so he could travel with her across state lines.
“Considering that my bad self is twenty—six, and she’s barely old enough to drive a car, and sexy as hell, I just fell madly in love with her,” he wrote. “She was a pretty skinny little tomboy dressed like Little Bo Peep. She was my heart’s desire, my partner in crimes of passion.”
In a 2011 essay, Holcomb said of the alleged experience, “I got lost in rock and roll culture. Steven’s world had sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it seemed no less chaotic than the world I left behind. I didn’t know it yet, but I’m unlikely to get out of there alive.
“I couldn’t believe he even asked me to have an abortion at this stage. He spent over an hour trying to persuade me to have an abortion. He said I was too young to have a baby and he would have brain damage because I was on fire and taking drugs.”
NME has reached out to Tyler’s representatives for comment.
