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In a bombshell Rolling Stone article, Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin says she was sexually molested at age 15 by Rodney Bingenheimer, the SiriusXM radio host once dubbed The Mayor of the Sunset Strip in large part due to his ownership in the influential rock & roll 1970s hotspot the English Disco.
Wiedlin is one of five women who tell Deadline’s sister publication Rolling Stone they were sexually assaulted or molested by Bingenheimer when they were minors in the 1970s and ’80s. The allegations come about eight months after Kari Krome, the songwriter for the ’70s all-female band the Runaways, sued Bingenheimer and the estate of the late Runaways producer Kim Fowley for sexual assault when she was a minor.
Wiedlin details the alleged assault in the Rolling Stone feature, recalling how she and other high school friends – they called themselves the Hollywooders – would sneak out of their homes to visit the red-hot English Disco on the Sunset Strip. The club was a frequent haunt of the era’s biggest rock stars, including David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, Keith Moon, the New York Dolls and even Elvis Presley.
It was during one of those visits, Wiedlin alledges, that club owner Bingenheimer, then 27, “approached her, isolated her in one of the club’s back rooms, and sexually assaulted her,” Rolling Stone writes.
“I remember [the room] being very dark and cold,” Wiedlin tells Rolling Stone. “I was a virgin. I didn’t have much experience with boys; boys tended to ignore me…. He picked me out that night. I didn’t know what was going to happen before, but he started rubbing against me with his crotch against my crotch. I didn’t know what to do; I was pretty much frozen. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t try to stop him.
Wiedlin says Bingenheimer told her to remove her belt as it was “getting in the way,” at which point he ejaculated on her clothes.
“I wasn’t entirely sure what had gone down until we went back out,” she says. “He disappeared [into the crowd], I went back to my friends, and my satin pants were a big mess. It was weird; it never occurred to me that that had been a crime. I didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t until the #MeToo movement started when I realized I was sexually assaulted by [an adult] when I was 15.
“I was this sweet, sensitive, artistic little girl,” she continues, “and I really wanted to be an adult. I was intrigued by the sexuality of Bowie and these other people. And I wanted it, but I was also scared and I didn’t want it, and I didn’t know how it was going to happen. And I certainly didn’t think this kind of creepy little man was something I would’ve chosen.”
Bingenheimer, a former KROQ disc jockey, hosts a weekly radio show on SiriusXM’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel. In its 2017 announcement that Bingenheimer was joining the station line-up, SiriusXM noted the dj’s 40-year history on KROQ and that he was known “for launching and championing now-legendary acts like the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Tom Petty, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Van Halen, The Clash, The Smiths, The Go Go’s, The Bangles, The Runaways and Oasis.”
The subject of a flattering 2003 documentary titled Mayor of the Sunset Strip, Bingenheimer did not reply to what Rolling Stone describes as a “detailed list of questions surrounding the allegations.”
SiriusXM did not reply to multiple requests from the magazine, according to Rolling Stone.
Deadline has reached out to a rep for Bingenheimer and to SiriusXM for comment, and will update this post if/when either responds.
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