It’s Time for a Sexual Assault Reckoning in the Music Industry

Despite all the #metoo movement did to raise awareness about the problem of sexual assault in the workplace, the music industry has remained largely unaffected. Powerful, high-profile individuals in the motion picture and television news industry have faced firings, civil lawsuits, and in some cases, criminal prosecutions. Meanwhile, some in the music industry have escaped similar consequences despite credible public claims that they committed sexual assaults.

“There has not been a reckoning in the music industry yet,” says attorney Karen Barth Menzies. “Now is the time.”

Karen represents survivors of sexual abuse. Thanks to new, special one-time laws in California and New York — California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act and New York’s Adult Survivors Act — the statute of limitations on sexual assault claims has temporarily been lifted, allowing women with long-standing claims the opportunity to seek justice in the civil court system. Karen has helped several survivors file lawsuits against prominent figures in the music industry including Steven Tyler, Marylin Manson, and Nick Carter. In each case, survivors had long-standing claims but, until now, they had no legal avenue for holding the predators, and the music industry, accountable.

“In the music industry, there is a sense that inappropriate and even illegal sexual behavior is acceptable,” Karen says. “It is engrained in the notorious ‘sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll’ culture. It’s glorified. But it has never been okay, and now it is time for a change.”

While the celebrity defendants draw the boldest headlines, Karen warns that the problem of sexual assault in the music industry is systemic. “It is not just about a celebrity predator who is able to get away with it,” Karen says. “It is about the enablers around the predator who not only look the other way but actually assist. They actually help the predator by giving them access to vulnerable people and putting them in an environment that allows sexual assault to occur.”

A lawsuit filed on behalf of one survivor documents how the predator used his fan club to identify potential victims, and how he recruited members of his band, other individuals related to the tour, and his record companies to groom victims – often underaged girls – for sexual abuse.

Most accused predators ultimately face claims from multiple survivors because they engage in a pattern of abuse. One of the survivors Karen represents decided to express what happened to her publicly. “She posted her truth online and she received responses from other survivors of this particular predator,” Karen says. “It was like a weight lifted off her shoulders — validation that it wasn’t just her. It helped her understand it wasn’t her fault because she wasn’t the only one.”

One of the benefits of filing a meritorious lawsuit is that it allows the survivors and their attorneys to conduct discovery. In the course of investigating, it is not uncommon to find other survivors of the predator or to uncover evidence of other individuals who knew about the predator’s pattern of abuse or even aided the predator in grooming victims or covering up the abuse. It is why some of the lawsuits name other defendants, including businesses, associated individuals, and even John and Jane Does who are likely to have contributed to the abuse.

Holding all parties involved to account is the only way to make the leaders in the music industry take the problem of sexual assault seriously. Karen says, “I’ve yet to meet a survivor who is not motivated by trying to stop the predator or the system that enables these predators so that the kind of sexual assault they suffered does not happen to someone else.”

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