Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler is in a legal battle after a teenage sexual assault lawsuit was filed against him. The singer released an autobiography, Does The Noise in My Head Bother You? in 2011, where he wrote about his relationship with Julia Misley.
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The lawsuit included multiple excerpts from Tyler’s memoir. Within the hardcover, Tyler declares that Misley’s parents “signed a paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state” and “she was sixteen, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it.”
Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcombs, sued Tyler for sexual assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in December of 2022. The case was filed just days before California’s Child Victims Act was passed.
Tyler’s legal team is now asking the judge to remove the “intentional inflection of emotional distress” claim, as he believes it was “free speech.” His attorneys also declare that their client does not identify Misley in the memoir. The request was filed on Friday (April 28) in a Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“Tyler’s statements in his memoirs, including his statements about his relationship with Plaintiff, thus concern a matter of public interest and qualify as protected activity,” read court documents obtained by People.
The rock legend pointed out that the Plaintiff can’t prove that she “experienced severe emotional distress” because of his memoir. His team noted that if damages are determined, they were not caused by Tyler.
“To the contrary, it is Plaintiff who has continued to speak publicly about her relationship with Tyler for over a decade and who is still capitalizing on Tyler’s fame by pitching herself as his ‘former girlfriend’ in her professional-speaker bio,” continued the appeal. “Finally, Tyler’s memoirs relay his own experiences from his newsworthy life.”
In April, he denied the allegations and asked to dismiss the lawsuit. The vocalist has confirmed their sexual relationship but claimed that Misley consented. He affirms that he had immunity because he was her legal guardian during the time of the event.
Misley also claims that Tyler forced her to get an abortion after she got pregnant. He allegedly threatened not to support her if she didn’t follow the action. Allegedly, the two met after an Aerosmith concert in 1973.
Misley’s attorney Jeff Anderson told Rolling Stone that Tyler’s efforts in the case are “frivolous.”
“The harm that he has caused is outlandish and astounding,” said Anderson. “When he claims in his affidavit that at the same time, he made millions of dollars at auction with the publication of the memoir, he claims under oath he did not intend to hurt her. That is like saying that when he put the stake in her heart, he never intended to have her bleed out.”
American Songwriter will be following this developing story.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
