Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin accuses DJ Rodney Bingenheimer of sexually abusing her as a teen

Five other women have made similar allegations against the radio personality and former nightclub impresario.

Jane Wiedlin, a guitarist for the chart-topping all-female rock band the Go-Go's, has accused radio DJ and former nightclub impresario Rodney Bingenheimer of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager in the 1970s.

Wiedlin went public with her allegations in an in-depth Rolling Stone report published Monday, in which four other women accused Bingenheimer of similar misconduct. The allegations come about eight months after Kari Krome, a songwriter and co-founder of the all-female 1970s band the Runaways, alleged in a lawsuit that Bingenheimer groomed and sexually assaulted her when she was underage.

Bingenheimer did not reply to a detailed list of questions about the allegations, according to Rolling Stone. A representative for Bingenheimer didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

Wiedlin told Rolling Stone that when she was around 15 in about 1974, she and her friends visited Bingenheimer's club English Disco, a Los Angeles hotspot where young women mingled with popular musicians. It was there, Wiedlin said, that Bingenheimer, who would have been around 27 at the time, sexually assaulted her.

"I remember [the room] being very dark and cold," Wiedlin told the magazine. "I was a virgin. I didn't have much experience with boys; boys tended to ignore me…. He picked me out that night. I didn't know what was going to happen before, but he started rubbing against me with his crotch against my crotch. I didn't know what to do; I was pretty much frozen. I didn't say anything; I didn't try to stop him."

Wiedlin previously described the encounter in the 2016 book Under the Big Black Sun, by John Doe of the punk band X, but she did not name her alleged assailant. "It wasn't until the #MeToo movement started when I realized I was sexually assaulted by [an adult] when I was 15," Wiedlin said.

Bingenheimer is perhaps best known for his radio show Rodney on the ROQ, which ran on L.A.'s KROQ station from 1976 to 2017. He has hosted a weekly show on SiriusXM since his KROQ show ended. An influential tastemaker in rock circles, Bingenheimer helped launch acts like the Go-Go's, Blondie, the Ramones, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana to stardom. He was also the subject of a 2003 documentary, Mayor of the Sunset Strip.

SiriusXM didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment on the allegations against Bingenheimer.

According to Rolling Stone, two of Wiedlin's friends at the time of the alleged incident also claim that Bingenheimer abused them. One friend, who used a pseudonym due to privacy concerns, said Bingenheimer "was a monster who was taking advantage of all these teenage girls."

Outside Wiedlin's orbit, a woman named Kourtney Kaye told Rolling Stone that Bingenheimer kissed and groped her when she was just 11, around 1974.

Another woman, a therapist using the pseudonym Amanda, alleged that she had a sexual relationship with Bingenheimer she was 17 in the mid-1980s. Rolling Stone confirmed that she filed a police report about the experience with the LAPD in 2018, but no charges were filed.

Krome, the Runaways songwriter, filed her lawsuit against Bingenheimer in April. The complaint, which EW has reviewed, alleges, "It was through his position of authority as an adult that Defendant Bingenheimer, a 28-year-old man, well-connected in the music scene, [and] the owner of the nightclub 'Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco' on Sunset Strip, groomed and exploited Plaintiff, a minor, and perpetrated his sexual assaults upon her." (Krome also sued the estate of ex-Runaways manager Kim Fowley in her suit; Fowley died in 2015.)

Upon learning of Wiedlin and the other women's accusations, Krome told Rolling Stone, "I'm grateful to everyone." She added, "I still have these feelings of self-loathing, guilt, and shame. And that goes from being manageable and unmanageable, but that's starting to lift. It's good to have someone listen to me and not roll their eyes at me and they're not telling me to let it go."

Wiedlin told the magazine she still has "huge mixed emotions" about what she's been through. "The guy's a f---ing monster, but then he also helped us… the Go-Go's got our first exposure because of Rodney," she said. "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, 'F--- 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."

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