Steven Tyler, frontman for the rock band Aerosmith, is asking a judge to exclude evidence of abortion in relation to a sex abuse lawsuit that is set to go to trial.

Key Takeaways:

• Julia Holcomb sued Tyler in 2022, alleging that he groomed and sexually assaulted her while she was a minor in the 1970s.

• Holcomb claims she became pregnant, and Tyler coerced her into an abortion.

• Tyler is asking a judge to keep evidence of Holcomb's abortion excluded, and if not, to include a second abortion after the relationship with Tyler was over.

The Backstory:

In 2022, Julia Holcomb sued Tyler for allegedly grooming and sexually abusing her in the 1970s, when she was just 16, under California’s Child Victims Act.

Though Tyler claims the relationship was consensual, the details, even from his perspective, are disturbing.

He wrote about Holcomb in his book, "Does The Noise In My Head Bother You? A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir," though he did not name her. In the book, he wrote:

She was sixteen, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it. With my bad self being twenty-six and she barely old enough to drive and sexy as hell, I just fell madly in love with her. She was a cute skinny little tomboy dressed up as Little Bo Peep. She was my heart’s desire, my partner in crimes of passion.

I was so in love I almost took a teen bride. I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me, signed papers 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.

Holcomb, however, claimed her mother was convinced by Tyler to give him guardianship so she could go on tour, despite being a minor, and this led to a sexual relationship.

Under the agreement, Tyler was supposed to give her better access to education and health care, but did not, and Holcomb described herself as "powerless" in the situation.

In 1975, she got pregnant, and said Tyler strongly pressured her into having an abortion. While she said she did not want to go through with it, Tyler was her legal guardian and she feared a loss of all support if she didn't do as he said. So she had the abortion, and it devastated her. Afterward, she moved back to her hometown of Portland, was baptized into the Methodist church, and eventually became a devout Catholic.

Holcomb went public with her story about the abortion and her time with Tyler more than 15 years ago. Read it in her own words. In one portion of her account, she recalled the abortion experience this way:

The doctor did not explain what the procedure would be like. Steven watched when the doctor punctured my uterus with a large needle. Then I was taken to a room to wait for the contractions.  Steven sat beside me in the hospital until it was over.  When the nurse would leave the room he was snorting cocaine on the table beside my bed.  He even offered some to me once, but I just turned away, sick inside. Steven, high on cocaine, was emotionally detached, witnessing the procedure but cut off from the normal reaction and feelings of horror you would expect.  At the time I was shocked and hurt by his behavior.

But I know now that on an unconscious level, he must have been traumatized witnessing the death of his first-born son in such a horrific and direct way.

Steven watched the baby come out and he told me later, when we were in New Hampshire, that it had been born alive and allowed to die.  (I was not allowed to see the baby when it was delivered.) Steven told me later that it had been a boy and that he now felt terrible guilt and a sense of dread over what he had done.

In "Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith," the band's memoir, Tyler also recalled the effect the abortion had on him:

It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?

Ray Tabano, one of the founding members of Aerosmith, said he was the one who had convinced Tyler to press Holcomb for an abortion, and said:

So they had the abortion, and it really messed Steven up because it was a boy. He . . . saw the whole thing and it [messed] him up big time.

In a statement about her lawsuit, Holcomb said she wanted celebrities like Tyler to be held accountable for preying on young girls like her.

“I want this action to expose an industry that protects celebrity offenders, to cleanse and hold accountable an industry that both exploited and allowed me to be exploited for years, along with so many other naïve and vulnerable kids and adults,” she said. “Because I know that I am not the only one who suffered abuse in the music industry, I feel it is time for me to take this stand and bring this action, to speak up and stand in solidarity with the other survivors.”

The Details:

Tyler has denied that he abused Holcomb, claiming that the relationship was consensual, though he was unsuccessful in getting the lawsuit dismissed. The case will go to trial later this month, and Tyler is looking to have the evidence of Holcomb's abortion kept out of court.

He claimed the abortion took place in Massachusetts, which is relevant as that portion of Holcomb's case has been thrown out already due to that state's statute of limitations, though the suit continues with regard to the part of their relationship that did not take place in Massachusetts.

Tyler also argued that if the 1975 abortion is allowed to be admitted, his team should also be allowed to introduce information about a second abortion Holcomb later had. That abortion took place in 1979, when she was pregnant by another man; the defense claims this proves her trauma isn't due to Tyler's actions, arguing:

[T]he fact that [Julia] voluntarily underwent a second abortion is probative as to the emotional distress she alleges she suffered from the 1975 abortion, and because [Julia] admits both abortions were traumatic, provides a possible alternative cause of her alleged mental condition.

However, it is notable that Holcomb never saw the result of the abortion; Tyler did.

And while Holcomb — who stated in 2011 that she was at that time a mother to seven more children — now regrets both abortions, the difference between the first and the second is coercion.

Holcomb felt the fear of potential destitution and homelessness; at the time, she was living in Massachusetts, thousands of miles away from her parents, as a minor who was completely dependent on Tyler, who pushed her to abort.

“My baby had one defender in life: me, and I caved in to pressure because of fear of rejection and the unknown future," she said. "I wish I could go back and be given that chance again, to say no to the abortion one last time. I wish with all my heart I could have watched that baby live his life and grow to be a man.”

The judge has yet to rule on Tyler's request.