The woman who accused Bob Dylan of grooming and sexually abusing her in 1965, when she was 12 years old, has dropped her case, Billboard reports.
The woman, identified as JC, had been accused by Dylan’s lawyers of destroying evidence after she failed to hand over emails and text messages by a deadline set by the court. She had also recently discharged her own legal representatives.
At a hearing on 28 July, a request was made to dismiss the case with prejudice.
Dylan’s lead lawyer, Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn, said in a statement: “This case is over. It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place. We are pleased that the plaintiff has dropped this lawyer-driven sham and that the case has been dismissed with prejudice.”
Dylan, 81, is yet to comment on the outcome.
The case was originally filed in New York state supreme court on 13 August 2021, alleging that the abuse occurred in Dylan’s room at the Chelsea Hotel between April and May 1965, when the musician would have been 23 to 24 years old.
Dylan denied the allegations in a statement shared by his spokesperson: “The 56-year-old claim is untrue and will be vigorously defended.”
Her lawsuit argued that Dylan had “exploited his status as a musician by grooming JC to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse JC”.
It further claimed that Dylan aimed to “lower her inhibitions with the object of sexually abusing her, which he did, coupled with the provision of drugs, alcohol and threats of physical violence, leaving her emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged to this day”.
After Dylan’s lawyers called it a “chronological impossibility” that Dylan – possibly one of the most documented and scrutinised musicians of all time – was in New York City during the alleged timeframe, the woman updated her lawsuit claiming that the alleged abuse took place during “several months in the spring of 1965”.
In response, Dylan’s legal team called it a “brazen shakedown … false, malicious, reckless and defamatory”. It continued: “Mr Dylan will not be extorted. Mr Dylan will vigorously defend himself against these lawyer-driven lies and seek redress against all those responsible, including by seeking monetary sanctions against persons responsible for manufacturing and bringing this abusive lawsuit.”
They claimed that the woman “told a very different story about her alleged interactions with Mr Dylan to a journalist, Mr Daryl Sanders, in 2017” and attempted to discredit JC by highlighting her work as a psychic.
Dylan recently announced his first UK tour in more than five years. The Philosophy of Modern Song, his new music essay collection celebrating the art of songwriting, is due for publication in November.
