Go-Go’s co-founder Jane Wiedlin has accused rock DJ Rodney Bingenheimer of sexual assault.
Wiedlin tells Rolling Stone that her encounter with Bingenheimer occurred around 1974 when she was 15 years old. It took place in Los Angeles at a venue called Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, which was co-owned by the DJ and frequented by rock acts like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Led Zeppelin and many others. Underage girls also attended the club.
“I remember [the room] being very dark and cold,” Wiedlin recalled. “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.”
Bingenheimer would have been around 27 years old at the time. Wiedlin claims that he then asked to remove her belt as it was “getting in the way,” and continued his rubbing before ejaculating onto her clothing. “I wasn’t entirely sure what had gone down until we went back out,” Wiedlin continued. “He disappeared [into the crowd], I went back to my friends, and my satin pants were a big mess.”
Though Wiedlin previously wrote about this experience in a chapter of X vocalist John Doe’s 2016 book, Under the Big Black Sun, but did not provide Bingenheimer’s name.
“It was weird; it never occurred to me that that had been a crime,” she now admits. “I didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t until the #MeToo movement started when I realized I was sexually assaulted by [an adult] when I was 15.”
Other Accusations Against Bingenheimer
Wiedlin is not the first woman to accuse Bingenheimer of misconduct; she is the sixth. Kari Krome, a founding member of the Runaways, also claimed in April that he sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager in the ’70s.
Rolling Stone reportedly reached out to Bingenheimer for comment, but he did not reply. Four other women have told the magazine that they were also assaulted as minors.
One of them was Wiedlin’s friend, Limor Godwin. “I was truly a virgin; I’d never been kissed before or anything else. He was kissing me, the worst breath ever,” Godwin said. “As far as manhandling me or sexually abusing me, you can say it was ‘consensual’ because what the hell did I know? I was 15, and he was 10 years older than I was. I certainly didn’t enjoy it.”
Another woman, who was in a relationship with Bingenheimer when she was 17 and he was 38, spoke with the Los Angeles Police Department in 2018, but no charges were filed.
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Wiedlin added that Bingenheimer and the Go-Go’s crossed paths later on, but she and the DJ never spoke of the alleged incident. Wiedlin chose to publicly tell her story after Krome came forward.
“I hadn’t known Kari well, but I remember meeting her when I was 14, and she was this amazing force,” Wiedlin said. “When she came out, I just felt like I had to support her. I didn’t want her to go to one of those things where people don’t believe the woman.”
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