Detroit rock icon Ted Nugent has a few things in common with Roy Moore.
They both have a fondness for cowboy hats, they both have a thing for guns and they both have cozy relationships with evangelical politicians.
They also appear to have shared a predilection for teenage girls during the 70s.
In 1978, the year before Moore had allegedly gone after 14-year-old Leigh Corfman, Nugent was pursuing a teenage girl himself: Pele Massa, a 17-year old from Hawaii.
Due to their age difference, the then 30-year-old Nugent was unable to marry her, so in a bizarre workaround, the musician was able to convince her parents to declare him her legal guardian, an arrangement that the two have openly acknowledged.
Now, this isn’t a big secret.
It’s been heavily documented by VH1, and a 2000 issue of SPIN magazine listed it in their 100 sleaziest moments in rock history, where despite the Woody Allen overtones, it only charted at #63.
While Moore has been evasive on whether or not he was into teenage girls in his thirties, Nugent has been much more brazen.
Like, really brazen.
In his 1981 single Jail Bait, Nugent sings that he doesn’t really see “age of consent” laws as that big of an issue:
Well, I don’t care if you’re just thirteen
You look too good to be true I just know that you’re probably clean
There’s one little thing I got do to you”
The lyrics go on to state: “It’s all right baby, it’s quite all right I asked your Mama.”
The song ends with a light-hearted nod to a statutory rape arrest, so it could maybe be dismissed today as a joke or cautionary tale, if not for the fact that this was both a frequent subject in Nugget’s other songs and his own statements at the time.
It’s also been the subject of at least one disturbing rumor.
In 2004, Hole front-woman Courtney Love claimed on The Howard Stern Show that she had given Nugent oral sex when she was 12 years old, something that Nugent apparently declined to comment on at the time.
Unlike Moore, Nugent isn’t running for Senate, but the fact that he has occupied a certain place in politics without this being an issue is puzzling.
In April, Nugent visited the White House along with Sarah Palin and fellow Detroit rock star Kid Rock, where they enjoyed dinner with the President and snapped photos in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.
A few years earlier, he attended the State of the Union as the guest of former Rep. Steve Stockman.
(I spoke to him in the Capitol after. He said he didn’t care for President Obama’s speech. Shocker.)
But Nugent is far from the only rock star to have lingering issues with teenage girls and the list is seemingly endless.
In his late 20s, Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler took legal guardianship of a 16-year-old groupie, whom, according to her, he later impregnated.
Former groupie Lori Maddox has also widely spoken about her underage encounters with David Bowie and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.
Iggy Pop has also penned an ode to another well-known groupie, flatly stating “I slept with Sable when she was 13” in the song’s opening line.
Flashing back, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry have also had their own issues with teens.
While comedians, politicians, and actors have had their inappropriate behavior come under the spotlight, there’s been a strange silence surrounding musicians, many of whom are still touring today.
Considering the decades of rumors and confirmed behavior, can this silence really last?
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
