Bob Dylan has been accused of sexual abuse in 1965 by a woman who says she was just 12 years old at the time, according to Rolling Stone. The woman anonymously filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday, August 13 just before the state’s Child Victims’ Act window allowing survivors of childhood abuse to sue their abusers after the statute of limitations closed.
The woman, identified in the court files as “J.C.,” says that Dylan abused her between April and May of 1965, using “his status as a musician by grooming J.C. to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse J.C.” The lawsuit claims he gave her “alcohol and drugs” and abused her multiple times, sometimes at his apartment at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City. J.C. seeks an unspecified amount of damages to be determined by a jury at trial. According to the suit, J.C. “sustained physical and psychological injuries… and, upon information and belief, some or all of these injuries are of a permanent and lasting nature.”
Meanwhile, a representative for Dylan, who sold his entire catalog last year for what some estimated reached “nine figures,” told Rolling Stone, “The 56-year-old claim is untrue and will be vigorously defended.”