Jeanne Bellino is suing the Aerosmith frontman for allegedly forcibly kissing her and pinning her against the wall in two separate incidents in the summer of 1975.
- Nov 3, 2023
AceShowbiz - Steven Tyler is facing another sexual assault lawsuit. A woman named Jeanne Bellino filed the lawsuit against the rocker on Thursday, November 2 in New York Supreme Court, accusing him of "mauling and groping" her during a modeling trip in the summer of approximately 1975.
In the lawsuit, the former teen model says that she and a friend met with Tyler and his entourage at the Warwick Hotel. When the group walked together down Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, Bellino said something that irritated Tyler and led him to force her inside a nearby phone booth.
"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 filing reads. "As Tyler was mauling and groping (Bellino), he was humping her pretending to have sex with (her). Others stood by outside the phone booth laughing and as passersby watched and witnessed, nobody in the entourage intervened."
Belinno alleges in the suit that "Tyler's penis was erect and it was evident to her as he rubbed it against her that he was not wearing underwear and wearing thin pants." Belinno claims she was able to free herself and leave the phone booth after raising up her knee and pulling on Tyler's hair, adding that she ran out of the phone booth in shock and fear.
During the incident, "Tyler's bandmates and members of the entourage watched, laughed and did nothing to intercede," the suit says. Despite the shock, Bellino says she stayed with Tyler and the group because she was relying on her friend for transportation.
The group then went back to the Warwick Hotel, where Tyler allegedly assaulted her a second time. The lawsuit states he "pinned (Bellino) against the wall, put his tongue down her throat and started humping (her), simulating sex."
When she resisted, Tyler allegedly told her that he was "going in my room to do something quick." He eventually invited Bellino into his hotel room, but she shook her head and "bolted toward the door." A doorman, who saw the alleged previous incident, then helped her and "flung" her into a cab that took her home.
Bellino says she was hospitalized and medicated as a result of the incident and still needs medication "to cope with the sexual assault and has suffered long-term physical injury associated with the trauma" nearly five decades later.
She claims in the suit that she "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."
Bellino is seeking "an amount that will fully and fairly compensate" her for injuries and damages. She is also seeking a trial by jury.
Bellino is the second woman who is suing Tyler after Julia Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcomb, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles in December 2022. Misley claimed that the Aerosmith frontman began assaulting her when she was 16 years old in 1973.
In the suit, Misley said Tyler persuaded her parents to grant him guardianship over Misley, who was underage at the time, so that she could travel across state lines with him without criminal prosecution. She claimed she was pregnant with Tyler's child in 1975 when she was 17, and that he persuaded her to get an abortion after she went to the hospital following an apartment fire.
In April of this year, Tyler called for the lawsuit to be dismissed and cited 24 defences denying the allegations. He insisted that he had immunity as her legal guardian at the time granted by her parents and that Misley had "not suffered any injury or damage" as a "result of any action by Defendant."
