Former Runaways’ bassist Jackie Fuchs recently opened up about her rape by the band’s manager and producer Kim Fowley.
Fuchs performed with the all-girl rock band from 1975 to 1977, and took on the stage name of Jackie Fox. She spoke out about her sexual assault at the hand’s of Fowley in a Huffington Post cover story, which was published on Thursday July 9th, 2015. In the piece, Fuchs explained that when she was 16, Fowley attacked her after the band played a gig in Orange County, California, on December 31st, 1975, according to NME and Consequence of Sound.
She recollects that she was given a number of Quaaludes, and heard Fowley ask a crew-member at the party if he wanted to have sex with her, according to NME. The crew-member in question declined. But, according to Consequence of Sound that cites the initial Huffington Post article, Fuchs said, “I remember opening my eyes, Kim Fowley was raping me, and there were people watching me.”
And, by people watching and witnessing the rape, Fuchs is claiming that her “last memory of the night” is of her Runaways’ band mates Joan Jett and Cherie Curie staring at her.
A representative for Jett denies that she witnessed the attack in 1975, and insisted that The Huffington Post direct all further questions back to Fuchs “as it’s a matter involving her and she can speak for herself.”
“You don’t know what terror is until you realise something bad is about to happen to you and you can’t move a muscle,” Fuchs stated, according to NME’s article that cites the Huffington Post. “I can’t move. I can’t speak. All I can do is look him in the eye and do the best I can do to communicate: please say no… I don’t know what it looked like from the outside. But I know what was going on inside and it was horror.”
While Jett’s representatives are denying that she was a witness, Runaways songwriter Kari Krome and her friend Brett Williams have stepped forward to corroborate Fuchs’ account of that New Years’ Eve.
Songwriter Krome, then aged 14, was another of Fowley’s victims. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “Like what was I going to do? Go outside and drive and find a pay phone and call the police? I didn’t want to call the police on anyone, but at the same time I knew what was happening was wrong.”
And, for Williams’s part, he is claiming that Jett insisted that he not discuss the incident, if ever approached by lawyers, according to Consequence of Sound.
Fowley – the band’s manager and co-writer of their biggest hit, “Cherry Bomb” – passed away in January. He was 75.
To read the entire Huffington Post cover story, click here.
Leave a Comment