Runaways bassist accuses manager of rape

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11 Jul, 2015 01:43 AM2 mins to read

Jackie Fox of the rock band The Runaways. Photo / Getty Images

Joan Jett's former The Runaways bandmate Jackie Fox has accused the group's late producer and manager of raping her when she was 16.

The bassist claims Kim Fowley sexually assaulted her in a motel room on New Year's Eve, 1975, in front of two of her bandmates.

Fox tells The Huffington Post she was forced to take Quaaludes and was unable to react when Fowley, who lost his battle with stomach cancer in January, attacked her following a gig in Los Angeles.

"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," she says.

"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... I remember opening my eyes, Kim Fowley was raping me, and there were people watching me."

Her account has been backed up by The Runaways singer Cherie Currie and teenage songwriter Kari Krome, who were in the motel room when the rape incident took place.

Krome, who was 14 at the time, says it "turned into this really disgusting theatre performance".

"Jackie was dead drunk - like corpse drunk. She was just laying down on her back, sound asleep, out of it. He had to manually move her body parts into positions that he wanted for himself.

"I didn't know what to do. Go outside, drive, 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."

Fox says none of her colleagues wanted to discuss the alleged rape afterwards and so she decided not to talk about it.

She claims the shame and torment she felt led her to attempt suicide during a tour of Japan in 1977. She quit the band shortly afterwards and was replaced by Victory Tischler-Blue.