Steven Tyler offers some reprehensible defenses in sexual assault case
Steven Tyler denies all accusations of sexually abusing a minor, because he was her legal guardian at the time
In today’s “Oh brother, this guy stinks” news, Steven Tyler is using some slimy defenses in response to the sexual abuse lawsuit filed in December 2022. The singer submitted a lengthy and convoluted answer to the lawsuit last week, per Rolling Stone.
Julia Misley—then Julia Holcomb—filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles court stating she was the young girl Tyler referred to as a pseudo “teen bride” in his memoir, Does The Noise In My Head Bother You? The suit claims Tyler first initiated sex with Misley in 1973, when she was just sixteen.
Her age is corroborated by Tyler’s memoir, in which he grotesquely writes, “She was 16, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it. I was so in love I almost took a teen bride.”
In the memoir, he also recalls Holcomb’s 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.”
“I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me,” Tyler wrote. Misley’s lawsuit also alleges Tyler pressured her to receive an abortion when she was 17.
The Aerosmith singer and his legal team are now claiming that because he had legal custody over the then-minor, this gives him “immunity or qualified immunity to Defendant as caregiver and/or guardian.”
He also claims Misley consented to their three-year sexual relationship, which is not only legally impossible as a minor (ever heard of statutory rape, or California Penal Code 261.5, Steven?) but a pretty piss poor defense for denying long-term harm.
In another factual error, Tyler states Misley’s claims of sexual abuse are barred due to the statute of limitations. They are not, as Misley filed through now-expired California’s Child Victims Act, which lifted statutes of limitation restrictions until December 31, 2022.
One of the defenses filed also alleges Misley “has not suffered any injury or damage as a result of any action by Defendant,” and “if it is determined that Plaintiff has been damaged, then any such damages were not caused by Defendant.”
In a statement, Misley’s lawyer Jeff Anderson writes, “He’s heaping more pain on Misley and gaslighting her by falsely claiming that she ‘consented’ and that the pain he inflicted was “justified and in good faith. Never have we encountered a legal defense as obnoxious and potentially dangerous as the one that Tyler and his lawyers launched this week: Their claim that legal guardianship is consent and permission for sexual abuse.”
Misley is suing Tyler for sexual battery, sexual assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.