Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler has been sued by a second woman for sexual assault. As Rolling Stone reports, a lawsuit was filed in New York on Thursday by former teen model Jeanne Bellino, who alleges that she was assaulted by Tyler in 1975, when she was 17 and Tyler was around 27.
Bellino says that her and a friend met up with Aerosmith and members of the band’s entourage near the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan after working at a fashion show. While walking down Sixth Avenue, she says that Tyler forced her into a phone booth and physically assaulted her.
“While holding her captive, Tyler stuck his tongue down her throat, and put his hands upon her body, her breasts, her buttocks, and her genitals, moving and removing clothing and pinning her against the wall of the phone booth,” the lawsuit reads. “As Tyler was mauling and groping Plaintiff, he was humping her pretending to have sex with Plaintiff. Others stood by outside the phone booth laughing and as passersby watched and witnessed, nobody in the entourage intervened.”
Bellino says that she escaped after raising her knee and pulling on Tyler’s hair, though remained with the group because she was relying on her friend for transportation. After they returned to the Warwick Hotel, Tyler allegedly again forced himself on Bellino at the hotel bar, then whispered in her ear that he had to go up to his room and would call for her soon. When he did call down to the lobby, an associate told Bellino that Tyler wanted her to go up there; per the suit, Bellino “couldn’t talk and was paralyzed” out of fear, shook her head and “bolted to the door,” where a doorman who purportedly witnessed the assault by the bar got her into a cab. The lawsuit claims that Bellino told her sister about the incident when she returned home.
The suit states that Bellino “has suffered and will continue to suffer, great pain of mind and body, severe and permanent emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, physical, personal & psychological injuries” due to the assault. Bellino is seeking unspecified damages to be determined by the court.
Last year, a woman named Julia Misley (formerly Julia Holcomb) filed a lawsuit accusing Tyler of sexually assaulting her as a minor in 1973. Tyler denied the accusations. Earlier this year, Aerosmith announced a farewell tour, which was postponed in September after only a handful of dates, attributed to a vocal cord injury.
If you or someone you know is undergoing sexual abuse, please visit rainn.org or contact the National Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-800-656-4673.
