Joan Jett Responds To Runaways Band-Member’s Rape Allegation Against Manager Kim Fowley

This article includes discussion of sexual assault.

Update July 13: Cherie Currie has also released a statement: “I have been accused of a crime. Of looking into the dead yet pleading eyes of a girl, unable to move while she was brutally raped and doing nothing. I have never been one to deny my mistakes in life and I wouldn’t start now. If I were guilty, I would admit it. There are so many excuses I could make being only one month into my sixteenth year at the time that people would understand but I am innocent. When I return from Sweden I will seek a qualified polygraph examiner to put to rest any and all allegations. I will make public the questions, answers and results of that test. I will prove I am telling the truth. I will not allow anyone to throw me under the bus and accuse me of such a foul act. I will fight for myself. It is the only thing I can do.”

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Earlier this week, The Huffington Post published a devastating article, in which Jackie Fox (or Jackie Fuchs) from seminal all-female ’70s rock band the Runaways speaks out for the first time about being allegedly raped by the band’s manager and producer Kim Fowley. The incident, which she says took place in 1975 when Jackie was 16, was made all the more troubling as it allegedly happened at a party in a room full of people, including lead singer Cherie Currie and her fellow band-member, cultural and feminist icon Joan Jett.

It’s a captivating and devastating piece of writing from Jason Cherkis, whose narration of the formation of the Runaways, Jackie’s alleged assault and the unravelling of the band in the aftermath is both immersive and thorough. Although his sexual inappropriateness with the Runaways has been documented for years, Kim Fowley has been a particularly celebrated figure in the music industry since the 1970s, making Fuch’s revelation particularly courageous.

In the piece, Cherkis also speaks to various friends of the band including Kari Krome (who claims she was also assaulted by Fowley, and was one of the witnesses to Fuchs’ rape when she was 14), Brent Williams and Helen Roessler. Fuchs was moved to tell her story after seeing sexual assault victims speak out against prominent figures like Bill Cosby. “I realised, ‘Oh my God, this is what’s happening on college campuses,’” she says.

In the piece, Fuchs says that she never discussed the assault with her bandmates, but was insistent that Currie and Jett had been in the room. Her replacement in the Runaways, Victory Tischler-Blue, confirmed that the rest of the band would often joke about the incident.

According to Cherkis, Currie claims that she “spoke up and stormed out of the room”; she also says that the girls never discussed how to handle rape: “You forget it and you move on,” she told Cherkis. “I pushed it out of my mind the best I could”. A representative of Joan Jett, meanwhile, said Jett had nothing to say about the matter. But overnight, after the article went viral, resulting in mounting pressure from the public, she released the following statement through Yahoo:

“Anyone who truly knows me understands that if I was aware of a friend or bandmate being violated, I would not stand by while it happened,” Jett said. “For a group of young teenagers thrust into ’70s rock stardom there were relationships that were bizarre, but I was not aware of this incident. Obviously Jackie’s story is extremely upsetting and although we haven’t spoken in decades, I wish her peace and healing.”

Joan Jett’s statement is careful not to confirm or deny anything, but admitting that “there were relationships that were bizarre” indicates that some bad stuff was going on. In the end it doesn’t make much difference: too often do we look to other people to ‘corroborate’ a rape victim’s story, as if them speaking out isn’t enough.

Jessica Hopper of Pitchfork – who was also instrumental in helping the R.Kelly abuse allegations come to light – has interviewed Cherkis about the Huffington Post piece. The pair discussed how difficult it is to get people talking honestly about a figure as revered as Kim Fowley. “It’s also this fervent belief that showbiz is hard, and if you can’t handle Kim Fowley, then you weren’t destined to make it anyways, and he was just testing you,” Cherkis said. “If you didn’t follow with what Kim wanted, that’s because you didn’t want to be a star enough.”

When discussing the reaction of the other Runaways – particularly Lita Ford, whose dismissiveness isn’t as obvious in the story – Cherkis says that the resentment between the band members is still palpable, perhaps contributing to a sense of denial over Jackie’s attack. “Joan very much believes in that rock myth Fowley [perpetuated],” he told Hopper. “In [a 2010 interview in] the L.A. Weekly, [Joan] said, ‘These girls, they wanted to make him out to be this bad guy, but they’re just blaming him for their own failure.’ That was the gist. ‘Was there abuse? If there was, why did we take it then?’ So she was sort of defending him in this story.”

It’s particularly searing that all of this happened within a band that is celebrated for its influence on feminist musical movements, and yet it was covered up for so long. Hopefully Jackie Fuchs will get her wish, and her story will encourage others to speak up.

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1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) offers counselling, support or assistance for anyone who has experienced sexual assault or family violence.