A woman who claims she had an illicit relationship with Steven Tyler in the 1970s when she was a minor has filed a lawsuit against the Aerosmith singer, accusing him of sexual assault, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit was filed following California legislation that temporarily waived statutes of limitations for allegations of childhood sexual abuse.
In the case filed in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling stone, plaintiff Julia Holcomb alleges that Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to give him custody of her when she was 16, thereby allowing her to live with him and engage in a sexual relationship. She claims they were together from 1973 until about three years later. The suit itself does not name Tyler, but the defendants are named as defendants Doe 1 and Does 2 through 50. But Holcomb – who Rolling stone mentioned in a 1976 profile of the band in reference to Tyler’s romantic life — has been public about her experiences with Tyler in the past, and the lawsuit directly cites from Tyler’s own autobiography. In his book, without naming him, Tyler similarly says that he “almost took a teenage bride” and that “her parents fell in love with me, signed papers for me to get custody, so I wouldn’t be arrested if I took her out of the country. I took her with me on tour.”
In the suit, Holcomb alleges that she “was powerless to resist” Tyler’s “power, fame and significant financial ability” and that Tyler “coerced and persuaded the plaintiff to believe that this was a “romantic affair.” Holcomb claims she met Tyler (who would have been 25 when they met) just after her 16th birthday when Aerosmith played a concert in Portland, Oregon, in 1973. Tyler, according to the suit, took Holcomb back to his place. hotel room, where they discussed Holcomb’s age. After he allegedly asked why she was out all night alone, Tyler and Holcomb discussed her troubles at home. He then “performed various criminal sexual acts on her” before sending her home in a taxi the next morning, the lawsuit alleges.
Tyler also allegedly bought Holcomb her own plane tickets to his next Aerosmith show in Seattle because she was a minor and could not legally travel with him across national lines, the suit says. After the show in Seattle, Tyler allegedly performed more sexual acts on her, and Holcomb flew back to Portland the next morning.
In 1974, the lawsuit alleges, Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to allow him to become her guardian, which would make it easier for him to travel with her without criminal charges — a timeline that matches Tyler’s own comments from his 2011 memoir. Tyler told Mother Holcomb that he would provide better support than she would receive at home and promised to enroll her in school and provide her with medical care. Tyler “purposefully failed to follow through on these promises and instead continued to travel with, assault, and supply Plaintiff with alcohol and drugs,” the lawsuit states.
Holcomb further alleges that she was pregnant with Tyler’s son in 1975 when she was 17, but had an abortion after Tyler insisted she terminate the pregnancy following an apartment fire. In his argument, he cited smoke inhalation and the child’s lack of oxygen. Although the lawsuit claims a doctor told her the unborn child was not harmed by the fire.
According to the lawsuit, Holcomb was hesitant to go through with the abortion, but Tyler had threatened to stop supporting her if she didn’t go ahead with the procedure. After the abortion, she reportedly left and went back to Portland to change her life. She became a devout Catholic, met her husband, and buried her past experiences with Tyler until he wrote about them in his book.
Holcomb says in the lawsuit that her life was further disrupted by the release of Tyler’s memoir, which, without Holcomb’s consent, referenced his time with an underage girl and subjected her to “involuntary humiliation” while framing the alleged abuse as “romantic, loving . relationship,” says the case. Tyler has also spoken about a relationship with an underage girl in both his memoirs and in Aerosmith’s autobiography. Aerosmith’s autobiography, published in 1997, refers to the relationship, the apartment fire and the abortion, but Tyler refers to the girl as Diana and said she was 14 when they met. In his memoirs, however, he says that she was 16 years old and he writes about the fire and not the abortion. In the lawsuit, Holcomb says she was named in the obituary’s acknowledgments, further removing her anonymity. (The book’s credits include Julia Halcombwhich could be the spelling of her name.)
“She was sixteen, she could be nasty, and there was no hair in it,” Tyler wrote in his memoir, before saying he became the girl’s guardian to avoid arrest if he moved her out of state before reporting the sexual assault. their efforts. a few pages later. “Since my bad self was twenty-six and she was barely old enough to drive and hot as hell, I just fell madly in love with her. She was a cute skinny little boy dressed up as Little Bo Peep. She was the love of my heart, my partner in crime of passion.”
The case is not the first time Holcomb has shared this information about his alleged experiences with Tyler. Before the complaint was filed, she reported on many of the same allegations in 2011 for the far-right, anti-abortion site Lifesitenews, and has gone on shows like Tucker Carlson’s to share her experiences as fodder for anti-choice lobbying. Holcomb also spoke about the experience in the documentary 2021 look away which focused on sexual abuse in rock music culture.
“I got lost in rock and roll culture. In Steven’s world it was 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 would barely make it out alive,” Holcomb wrote in 2011. “I couldn’t believe he was even asking me to have an abortion at this stage. He spent over an hour pressuring me to go ahead and have an abortion. He said I was too young to have a baby and it would have brain damage because I had been in the fire and taken drugs. ”
Holcomb’s lawsuit comes in the final days of California’s Child Victims Act, a 2019 law that lifted the statute of limitations and granted a three-year grace period for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to come forward with their allegations. The deadline to file a lawsuit is December 31, 2022.
A representative for Tyler did not immediately respond Rolling stonerequest for comment.
New York has similar legislation to the Adult Survivors Act, which gives New Yorkers a year to file a lawsuit for sexual assault they allege occurred as an adult, regardless of when the incident occurred. Since they came into effect last month, two women have accused Ahmet Ertegun of sexual assault in the 1980s and 1990s. California also passed a law lifting restrictions on adult sexual assault for one year starting January 1, 2023.
