A new lawsuit has been filed that suggests that Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler was involved with the sexual assault of a minor in the ’70s. The lawsuit was filed in California where legislation has waived the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse allegations.
The suit, according to a report from Rolling Stone, accuses him of sexual assault, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In court documents obtained by Rolling Stone, the plaintiff Julia Holcomb alleged that the singer convinced her mother to grant him guardianship over her when she was just 16-years-old (at that time Tyler would have been 25), and that she lived with him and engaged in a sexual relationship with the singer between 1973 and their split three years later.
Tyler’s name is not specifically mentioned in the lawsuit, which proclaims the defendant as “Doe,” but as Rolling Stone pointed out, Holcomb has previously spoken about her experience with Tyler in the past and the lawsuit directly quotes from his memoir with the timelines matching up.
Tyler’s book included a passage in which the Aerosmith singer comments that he “almost took a teen bride,” adding, “her parents 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.”
Holcomb alleges in her suit that she felt “powerless to resist” this singer and was “coerced and persuaded” into believing that she was in a “romantic love affair.” She details her first meeting with Tyler taking place just after her 16th birthday at a concert in Portland, Oregon. She was taken to his hotel room where they allegedly discussed her age and why she was out at night by herself. It was during that night that Tyler allegedly first “performed various acts of criminal sexual conduct upon her.”
The singer also allegedly purchased her a plane ticket to their next show in Seattle as she was unable to legally travel with him across state lines. Eventually meeting with Holcomb’s family, a deal was allegedly struck to grant Tyler guardianship, one in which Holcomb says her family was promised that the singer would enroll her in classes and take care of her health care, promises that were not met.
Holcomb alleges that she got pregnant with Tyler’s son when she was just 17, but got an abortion after the singer insisted that she terminate the pregnancy following an apartment fire. It’s alleged that he told Holcomb that he feared for the effect the smoke inhalation and lack of oxygen would have on their child.
The suit claims that Holcomb was told by a medical professional that the baby had not been harmed by the fire. This event was a turning point in the relationship, as Tyler had allegedly threatened to stop supporting her if she didn’t proceed with the abortion. After she had the procedure, she left Tyler and returned home to start a new life. She says that she had moved on until the singer wrote about their experiences in his memoir without her consent, even listing her misspelled name (Julia Halcomb) in the book’s acknowledgements.
Holcomb has previously shared the alleged details of her time with Tyler on the anti-abortion website Lifesitenews, in the 2021 documentary Look Away that focused on sexual abuse in rock culture and appearing on talk shows such as Tucker Carlson’s show.
“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,” Holcomb wrote in 2011. “I could not believe he was even asking me to have an abortion at this stage. He spent over an hour pressing me to go ahead and have the abortion. He said that I was too young to have a baby and it would have brain damage because I had been in the fire and taken drugs.”
California’s Child Victims Act was enacted in 2019 to lift the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, granting a three-year window to come forward with allegations. That window is set to close tomorrow (Dec. 31), with Holcomb’s suit being filed just ahead of the deadline.
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