Steven Tyler.Photo: Leon Bennett/Getty Images
Steven Tyler’s legal team has filed another response to the womansuing him for alleged sexual assaultover 50 years ago.
In documents filed Friday in a Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Aerosmith frontman claims via his lawyers that plaintiff Julia Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcomb, cannot use his memoirs as cause for “emotional distress” in court as it was “free speech” and he does not identify her in his writing.
Tyler, 74, claims that there is a two-year statute of limitations for the claim, based on his 2011 memoirDoes the Noise in My Head Bother You?He also claims that his statements in the memoirs “do not qualify as outrageous conduct that was intended to cause emotional distress. Nor can Plaintiff demonstrate that she actually experienced severe emotional distress as a result of the memoirs.”
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The second memoir in question for Tyler — who recently confirmed he isgoing on a farewell tourwith Aerosmith — is 1997’sWalk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith.
A rep for the rocker did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
In April,Tyler filed a response to Misley’s lawsuitand stated a lengthy set of defenses to the claims against him. Meanwhile, Misley’s lawyer suggested that the rocker is simply “gaslighting” her.
In the filing, Tyler stated that Misley consented to their sexual relationship and he had immunity as her legal guardian at the time the alleged events occurred. He also requested for the lawsuit to be dismissed entirely.
The response came three months after Misley — who had a sexual relationship with Tyler when she was a teen in the ’70s —filed a lawsuitagainst Tyler for sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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Misley filed the lawsuit just days before theDec. 31 deadlinefor California’s Child Victims Act, which lifted the statute of limitations on reporting childhood sexual abuse crimes.
In the complaint, Misley — who “directly quotes” from Tyler’s memoir — alleged that Tyler was able to convince her mother to grant guardianship over her when she was 16 years old, which provided a means for the star to allegedly have a sexual relationship with her. She alleged that she was “powerless to resist” Tyler, who had “power, fame and substantial financial ability.”
Misley said she eventually left Tyler and returned home to Portland after the abortion, married, and became a devout Catholic.
source: people.com
