Steven Tyler, lead vocalist with the Grammy Award-winning rock act Aerosmith, is facing new allegations of sexual assault after a lawsuit was filed in New York on Thursday. It follows separate sexual assault claims submitted by another woman last year.
The latest claims, which date back to the 1970s, allege that former child model Jeanne Bellino, who was then 17, suffered “permanent emotional distress” after she was groped and kissed against her will by Tyler, who is now 75.
Bellino claims in the lawsuit that Tyler, who was 27 at the time of the alleged incidents, sexually assaulted Bellino twice after they met in a New York hotel in the summer of 1975, according to details of the case published by Rolling Stone magazine. Tyler and his representatives have yet to comment on the new allegations.
The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified damages from the singer, cites “gender-motivated violence” as being central to the claim, Rolling Stone said. It adds that she was groped against her will when Tyler pushed her into a phone booth, and that she was forcibly kissed against her will later that same day in Manhattan’s Warwick Hotel.
Bellino “has suffered and will continue to suffer great pain of mind and body, severe and permanent emotional distress,” the lawsuit claims, adding that she still experiences “physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, physical, personal and psychological injuries,” Rolling Stone said.
It added that she was “hospitalized and medicated as a result of the incident” and that she was “held captive” by Tyler, who groped her breasts, buttocks and genitals in the phone booth while members of his entourage looked on and laughed.
Bellino says she was dependent on a friend for transportation, so returned with Tyler to the hotel where the second assault allegedly took place. The lawsuit does not explain why she waited almost 50 years to make the allegations, according to Rolling Stone.
The latest allegations follow claims filed last year in California in which another woman, Julia Holcomb Misley, says she was the victim of sexual battery and assault of a minor throughout a three-year relationship with Tyler in the 1970s, which began when she was 16. Misley said Tyler used his influence as a prominent musician to “groom, manipulate, exploit [and] sexually assault” her over a period of several months. Tyler has denied Misley’s allegations.
Aerosmith has sold upwards of 150 million albums worldwide, including more than 85 million in the US, making them the biggest-selling American hard rock act of all time. The band has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.