Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler accused of molesting 17-year-old in new lawsuit
A second woman has accused Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler of sexual assault.
In the new lawsuit, filed in New York on Thursday (2 November), former child model Jeanne Bellino said she suffered “physical, psychological and emotional injuries” after Tyler allegedly molested her in 1975 when she was 17 and he was in his late 20s.
The Independent has contacted Tyler’s representatives for comment.
Bellino alleges that a friend arranged for her to meet Tyler in Manhattan where, while walking down the street together, the musician forced her into a phone booth and aggressively kissed, groped and fondled her.
“Others stood by outside the phone booth laughing and as passers-by watched and witnessed, nobody in the entourage intervened,” the lawsuit claims.
The suit further alleges that Tyler assaulted her again in a public area at the Warwick Hotel before she was able to escape.
“He never even asked me what my name was,” Bellino said of Tyler in a news conference on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
Bellino’s lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, cites “gender-motivated violence” as the cause of action.
“Jeanne is now 66 years old and suffered in silence and humiliated shame for so many years, and had the courage to now tell her story,” her attorney Jeff Anderson told People. “As horrific as it is, it’s powerful, and she wanted Latina women and girls to know they can stand up and speak out.”
The news comes 11 months after another woman accused Tyler of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in 1973 when she was 16 years old.
Plaintiff Julia Holcomb’s lawsuit took quotes from Tyler’s 1997 memoir, in which he writes that he “almost took a teenage bride” and that her parents “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”.
Holcomb claims that Tyler plied her with drugs and alcohol. She alleges that when she became pregnant with his child at 17, the singer convinced her to have an abortion.
In his memoir, Tyler did not name Holcomb but wrote of an unnamed teenage girl: “She was sixteen, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it.”
Holcomb previously spoke about the alleged experience in a 2011 essay.
“I became lost in a 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,” she said.
If you have been raped or sexually assaulted, you can contact your nearest Rape Crisis organisation for specialist, independent and confidential support. For more information, visit their website here.
