Swift sues radio host for alleged groping
Last month, former Colorado radio personality Robert “Jackson” Mueller declared he had bad blood with a certain international pop superstar.
Mueller said he showed up at a meet-and-greet for Taylor Swift after a Denver show in 2013 with his girlfriend. He said that, during a last-minute photo op, Swift put her arm around his shoulder. The camera flashed, and that appeared to be that. Just another day in the radio biz.
However, after the picture was taken, Mueller said a member of Swift’s security team accused him of inappropriately touching the singer. And, in a suit against Swift filed in September, Mueller said he lost his $150,000 job on the show “Ryno and Jackson” two days after the meetand-greet because of that false accusation.
“Mueller steadfastly maintains that no inappropriate contact of any kind occurred between him and Ms. Swift,” he said in his lawsuit.
Now, Swift has replied to Mueller’s suit — and she isn’t happy. In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado, Swift not only denied Mueller’s charges, but countersued, alleging assault.
“In the course of his meet and greet with Ms. Swift, Mueller intentionally reached under her skirt, and groped with his hand an intimate part of her body in an inappropriate manner, against her will, and without her permission,” Swift’s suit read. “Mueller did not merely brush his hand against Ms. Swift while posing for the photograph; he lifted her skirt and groped her.”
When Mueller “groped her bottom,” the singer “was surprised, upset, offended, and alarmed” — then had to go play a show for 13,000 people.
“She has held thousands of meet and greet events for both fans and radio station personnel,” the suit read. “In those thousands of events, she has been inappropriately groped one time — by Mueller.”
The singer rejected Mueller’s contention, in his suit, that another staff member of his radio station was the one who transgressed.
“Ms. Swift knows exactly who committed the assault — it was Mueller,” her suit reads.
His attorneys were not immediately available for comment.