The Truth About Steven Tyler's Troubled Past
Remember in Armageddon, how uncomfortable it was watching Liv Tyler get all handsy and animal cracker amorous with Ben Affleck on a picnic blanket? And remember how much weirder it got when you realized they were doing this while her dad sang a love ballad in the background? You guys, that's still not even in the top five creepiest things that Steven Tyler has been involved in. Allegedly.
Maybe it all comes down to that rock and roll lifestyle, which the Aerosmith lead singer has been experiencing for more than fifty years. Maybe it's just that splitting your time between being a rock god and serving as a sun damaged Jack Sparrow life model doesn't leave room in your schedule for discerning personal choices, like not getting hooked on a decade-long regimen of uppers and downers, or convincing a 16 year old girl's parents to let you take custody of their child so you can hook up and do heroin together.
Allegedly.
Steven Tyler's cavalcade of discomfort
According to her own accounts, reported by the La Crosse Tribune, Julia Holcomb was 16 when she landed backstage passes to an Aerosmith concert in Portland, Oregon. Was he a decade older than she was? Yes. Did they spend the night together? They did, according to Holcomb. Did Tyler become Holcomb's legal guardian so that he could transport his teenage girlfriend across state lines and move her into his apartment in Boston? Yeah, pretty much.
The two tried and succeeded in getting pregnant, but Holcomb would wind up trapped in an apartment fire while Tyler was on tour. Accounts of what happened next vary — Julia says that Tyler told her to either get an abortion or hit the bricks. Tyler's account involves doctors pointing out that the amount of smoke inhalation and exposure to heroin that the kid had been subject to would almost definitely lead to severe birth defects. The pregnancy was terminated, and the relationship ended sometime around 1978.
In the years that followed, Tyler's drug dependency got worse, culminating in a stint in rehab in the mid '80s. Holcomb found religion in a big way, and toured the country with the Silent No More group, giving lectures on the regret she felt after her procedure.