According to Pitchfork, the Go Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin has accused radio DJ and former club owner Rodney Bingenheimer of allegedly sexual assaulting her when she was a teenager. According to Rolling Stone, Wiedlin claims she was allegedly about 15 years old and Bingenheimer was allegedly 27 years old when Bingenheimer allegedly isolated the guitarist in a back room of his Los Angeles club Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco and allegedly rubbed his crotch against hers until he allegedly ejaculated. “I didn’t know what to do; I was pretty much frozen,” Wiedlin told Rolling Stone. “I didn’t say anything; I didn’t try to stop him.”
The claims follow a lawsuit that was allegedly filed late last year which is still is active. The Runaways’s Kari Krome accused Bingenheimer and the late Kim Fowley of allegedly sexual assaulting her when she was allegedly a teenager. Wiedlin said she is coming forward to show Krome that she is not alone.
Wiedlin added that she has mixed feelings about Bingenheimer’s role as an early champion of the Go-Go’s. “The guy’s a fucking monster, but then he also helped us,” she said, continuing, “the Go-Go’s got our first exposure because of Rodney.”
The guitarist explained, “I should have said no [the night of the alleged assault], but I didn’t. It wasn’t anything I asked for, but at the same time I wanted to be a sexy young adult or whatever. It’s very tangly in my mind. At this stage, I think, ‘Fuck that guy.’ That was wrong. Even if I had asked him to do something, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t have been right. It was illegal and immoral.”