Former Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie released a statement responding to allegations her former bandmate Jackie Fuchs (who went by the stage name Jackie Fox) was raped by the band's manager, Kim Fowley, while Currie, the band's guitarist Joan Jett and others watched.
"I have been accused of a crime. Of looking into the dead yet pleading eyes of a girl, unable to move while she was brutally raped and doing nothing. I have never been one to deny my mistakes in life and I wouldn't start now. If I were guilty, I would admit it," the 55-year-old wrote on Facebook on Saturday."There are so many excuses I could make being only one month into my sixteenth year at the time that people would understand but I am innocent. When I return from Sweden I will seek a qualified polygraph examiner to put to rest any and all allegations."
She added, "I will make public the questions, answers and results of that test. I will prove I am telling the truth. I will not allow anyone to throw me under the bus and accuse me of such a foul act. I will fight for myself. It is the only thing I can do."
According The Huffington Post reporter Jason Cherkis' story, Fuchs says the last thing she remembers before the rape was looking up to see Jett and Currie staring at her. Currie claims she spoke up and left the room while the rape was taking place, however, Kari Krome, who was 14 at the time, and also claims to have been sexually assaulted by Fowley at a different time, recalled that Jett and Currie were sitting off to the side of the room, snickering.
Currie's comments come a day after Jett released her own statement on Facebook denying that knowledge of Fuchs' rape.
“Anyone who truly knows me understands that if I was aware of a friend or bandmate being violated, I would not stand by while it happened.” Jett wrote on Friday. "For a group of young teenagers thrust into '70s rock stardom there were relationships that were bizarre, but I was not aware of this incident. Obviously Jackie’s story is extremely upsetting and although we haven’t spoken in decades, I wish her peace and healing.”
Fuchs left the band in 1977 and the Runaways broke up in 1979.
Read the full story on Jackie Fuchs and The Lost Girls.
UPDATE: In a blog post, former Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs responded to the "outpouring of love and support" she has received since The Huffington Post first published her claims that she was raped by the band's manager on New Year’s Eve 1975, while others, including her bandmates watched.
In the post, which originally appeared on Facebook, she wrote, "I know some people watching the online drama unfold have been discouraged by the lack of support I've received from my former bandmates. To which I can only say that I hope you never have to walk in their shoes. My rape was traumatic for everyone, not just me, and everyone deals with trauma in their own way and time."
She added, "All I can say about what was said and done is that my bandmates were children who'd witnessed something criminal and tragic. I've no doubt they were dealing with it as best they were able. They had no responsible adults to guide them -- only a rapist and his apologists."
Fuchs went on to say that "being a passive bystander is not a "crime," which is what Currie claimed she was being accused of in her statement. Rather Fuchs wrote that "All of us have been passive bystanders at some point in our lives."