Joan Jett, Cherie Curry deny knowledge of bandmate's rape by manager

quote:

---

Jackie Fuchs, the former bass player with the LA proto-punk band the Runaways, caused widespread shock last week when she detailed her rape by the band’s manager Kim Fowley in an interview with the Huffington Post. Now two of her former bandmates, guitarist Joan Jett and singer Cherie Currie, have disputed her version of events.

In the interview, Fuchs said that on New Year’s Eve 1976, after a Runaways show, she was given Quaaludes by a stranger, then raped by Fowley. “I remember opening my eyes, Kim Fowley was raping me, and there were people watching me,” she said. Among those present and watching, she said, were Jett and Currie.

Jett’s representative had denied the claim in the original article, then on 10 July, Jett – known as a role model and inspirational figure for women in rock music – issued a statement. “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,” she 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.”

Currie, too, has now responded. On 10 July, on her Facebook page, she wrote: “All I can say is if Joan, Sandy [west, the Runaways’ drummer] and I saw an unconscious girl being brutally raped in front of us, we would have hit him over the head with a chair.”

---