In a startling new article by Rolling Stone, Jane Wiedlin – best known for her work as a member of The Go-Go’s – accuses former KROQ / current Sirius XM disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer of sexually assaulting her at his so-called “English Disco” nightclub in Hollywood.
The piece details how Wiedlin and some of her fellow music-obsessed high school friends would sneak out of their homes and drive to the Sunset Strip to hang out at the nightclub. One such evening, however, Wiedlin alleges that Bingenheimer came up to her, got her alone in one of the back rooms of the disco, and sexually assaulted her.
Rodney Bingenheimer arrives at the "CBGB" Special Screening at ArcLight Cinemas on October 1, 2013.
“I remember [the room] being very dark and cold,” Wiedlin told Rolling Stone. “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.”
“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,” she says. “It was weird; it never occurred to me that that had been a crime. 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."
Jane Wiedlin, backstage before a performance with the Go-Go's for 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'
Per the piece, “Four other women – all of whom say they were minors at the time – detailed alleged similar experiences with Bingenheimer to Rolling Stone. One of the women alleges he molested her when she was a pre-teen.”
These accusations come on the heels of Bingenheimer and the late Kim Fowley, former manager of the Runaways, being named in a sexual assault lawsuit filed in December 2022 – and then amended in April 2023 – by Kari Krome, songwriter and founding member of the Runaways. In her lawsuit, Krome alleged that both Bingenheimer and Fowley separately groomed and then sexually assaulted her in the 1970s when she was a teenager.
Per Rolling Stone, Bingenheimer – currently a DJ for Sirius XM’s Underground Garage - did not reply to the magazine’s detailed list of questions surrounding the allegations by Wiedlin.
