The Go-Go’s’ Jane Wiedlin Among Those Accusing DJ & Club Owner Rodney Bingenheimer Of Sexual Abuse
Six women are accusing former KROQ DJ and LA club owner Rodney Bingenheimer of molesting them when they were underage. As Rolling Stone reports, those accusers include Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s.
As a teen in the 1970s, Wiedlin frequented English Disco, Bingenheimer’s club on the Sunset Strip, where some of the era’s famous groupies like the GTOs and Sable Starr used to hold court. Dubbing themselves the Hollywooders, Wiedlin and her friends would sneak out of their parents’ homes to dance, watch live music, and meet rock stars at the club. In Rolling Stone’s report, Wiedlin says one night at the club Bingenheimer took her to an isolated back room and sexually assaulted her.
“I remember [the room] being very dark and cold,” Wiedlin tells RS. “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 says that after asking her to remove her belt, which was “getting in the way,” Bingenheimer ejaculated on her clothes. She previously described the same incident without naming names in John Doe of X’s book Under The Big Black Sun. She says it wasn’t until the rise of the #MeToo movement that she realized she had been sexually assaulted at age 15. Bingenheimer did not respond to Rolling Stone’s questions about the incident.
In April, Kari Krome of the Runaways sued Bingenheimer for sexual assault. Four other women described similar incidents to Rolling Stone.
In the 1970s, Bingenheimer began hosting his influential KROQ show Rodney On The Roq and earned the nickname “The Mayor of the Sunset Strip” for his role in the city’s nightlife. He was also a columnist for Go! magazine and contributor to Phonograph Record. Rolling Stone dug up a 1969 story from their own archives in which Bingenheimer is described as a power-broker who gloms onto bands and then connects them with groupies. In the documentary about Bingenheimer, The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip, he said of himself, “I’m the designated driver between the famous and the not-so-famous.” He currently hosts a weekly show on SiriusXM’s Underground Garage