Aerosmith frontman, Steven Tyler has been sued for sexual assault of a minor. The case involves Julia Holcomb, a woman whom he had a relationship with in the early 70s.
According to Rolling Stone, the woman accuses the former American Idol judge of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit was filed following California legislation that temporarily waived statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse allegations.
In the suit filed in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, the plaintiff alleges that Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to grant him guardianship over her when she was 16 years old, which consequently allowed 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 doesn’t name Tyler, naming the defendants as Defendant Doe 1 and Does 2 through 50.
However, the relationship has been thoroughly documented. The plaintiff has been public about her experience with the rock singer. Notably, she’s become an anti-abortion activist after she alleges that Tyler manipulated her into a late term abortion after their apartment in Boston burned down. She documented her story on lifesite anti-abortion website.
According to Holcomb’s story, Steven wanted kids…initially.
“I wanted children, and began to believe he must truly love me since he had made himself my guardian and was asking to have children with me,” Holcomb wrote. “He threw my birth control pills off the balcony of the hotel where we were staying, into the street far below.”
But after she got pregnant, she says Tyler changed his mind. He left her alone and pregnant in Boston while he toured with Aerosmith. “I was alone and pregnant in the apartment with no money, no education, no prenatal care, no driver’s license and little food.”
Allegedly, Tyler manipulated Holcomb into having an abortion
Their apartment caught fire. Holcomb suffered from smoke inhalation, but the baby was unscathed. Still, Tyler pressured her to have an abortion at around five months pregnant. “Steven sat beside me in the hospital until it was over. When the nurse would leave the room he was snorting cocaine on the table beside my bed. He even offered some to me once, but I just turned away.”
If her account is true, it’s pretty messed up.
In the suit, Holcomb alleges that she “was powerless to resist” Tyler’s “power, fame and substantial financial ability, and that Tyler “coerced and persuaded Plaintiff into believing this was a ‘romantic love affair’”. Holcomb alleges that she met Tyler 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 hotel room, where they discussed Holcomb’s age. After he allegedly asked why she was out all night by herself, Tyler and Holcomb talked about her troubles at home. He then “performed various acts of criminal sexual conduct upon” her before sending her home in a taxi the next morning, the lawsuit states.
Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to become her guardian, which allowed them to cross state lines legally
By 1974, as the suit alleges, Tyler convinced Holcomb’s mother to allow him to become her guardian, which would allow him to more easily travel with her without criminal prosecution.
Holcomb says the publication of Tyler’s memoir, further disrupted her life as he referenced his time with an underage girl. He also referenced the relationship in an Aerosmith autobiography. Published in 1997, it references the relationship, the apartment fire, and abortion, but Tyler refers to the girl as Diana and said she was 14 at the time they met.
