Steven Tyler has finally responded to allegations of sexual abuse made by Julia Holcomb three months after she filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles claiming the abuse occurred when she was a minor.
Aerosmith's lead singer filed a lengthy defense in the Los Angeles County Superior Court last week in response to the lawsuit filed by plaintiff Julia Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcomb, for sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
However, Misley's lawyer has accused 75-year-old Tyler of "gaslighting" her.
Misley, who had a sexual relationship with Tyler when she was a teen in the '70s, filed the lawsuit before the 31 December 2022 deadline for California's Child Victims Act, which lifted the statute of limitations on reporting childhood sexual abuse crimes.
She alleges Tyler convinced her mother to grant guardianship over her when she was 16, which allowed him to have a sexual relationship with her.
Tyler's filing states the sexual relationship was consensual and he had legal immunity as Misley's guardian at the time of the alleged events. He also requested the dismissal of the entire lawsuit.
Tyler listed 24 affirmative defenses, denying all of Misley's allegations, and claimed she did not suffer any injury or damage as a result of his actions, and that any damages were not caused by him.
Misley's lawsuit quotes directly from Tyler's memoir, in which he describes a relationship with an unnamed 16-year-old girl. In the book, Tyler wrote he "almost took a teen bride" because "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".
