Former Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs was only 16 years old when she was allegedly drugged and raped by the band's manager and producer Kim Fowley. The sexual assault happened in front of a crowd of people at a hotel room New Year's Eve party in 1975, and she opened up to the Huffington Post to tell her story.
Fuchs (also known by her stage name "Jackie Fox") told the Huffington Post that she never intended on going public with her experience, but she was recently inspired by the women speaking out against Bill Cosby, pop star Kesha who is suing her former producer Dr. Luke for drugging and assaulting her, and all the other low-profile women and college students coming forward about their experiences with sexual assault and date rape.
"I realized, 'Oh my God, this is what's happening on college campuses,'" she said.
The musician claimed she was drugged before the attack, but she described what she could remember in lurid detail. Witnesses at the Runaways New Year's Eve show after party at a nearby hotel said they heard Fuchs was given approximately up to six Quaaludes, a sedative drug that was highly abused in the 1970s.
"It was a date rape-type situation," said Brent Williams, a party attendee and friend of Fuchs'.
The assault is detailed candidly by other witnesses, but Fuchs' own description of being drugged out during her alleged rape is heart-breaking.
"You don't know what terror is until you realize something bad is about to happen to you and you can't move a muscle," she said. "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."
Her attacker, Fowley, passed away in January of this year and was previously accused of abusive behavior, according to Pitchfork. He was responsible for putting together the all-girl rock band The Runaways after placing an ad in a Los Angeles fanzine, NME reported.
Fowley denied in a 2013 band biography having any sexual contact with any of the members of the Runaways, according to Vulture.
Read her full account in the Huffington Post story, "The Lost Girls," here.
