Taylor Swift is the top of our girlcrush list right now. This talented singer may live a very public life and we might think we know everything about her and her relationships but there is one aspect of her personal life that for quite some time she fought relatively quietly. That was until her day in court. Swift took the witness stand in the case against the DJ who groped he and told it like it was. She did not back down. She spoke for all of us; and she made sure she was heard. And heard she was. A jury returned a verdict after only four hours finding that back in 2013, Colorado radio DJ, David Mueller groped her. In deposition testimony prior to trial here’s what Taylor said happened. While posing for a photo with Mueller, “he took his hand and put it up my dress and grabbed onto my ass cheek, and no matter how much I scooted over, it was still there. It was completely intentional. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” At trial she was just as clear, even more so really. One of our favorite Swift responses while on the stand was to the question as to why her skirt wasn’t ruffled in the front if she were groped, “Because my ass is located in the back of my body,” the singer responded.
Note that Mueller got himself in the position of fighting Swift in court. Swift did not report the incident to police (which, by the way, she could have–his alleged actions could have supported a criminal charge) but rather, promptly told her mother and her team about it who notified Mueller’s employer. No one from Swift’s side asked for Mueller to be fired. They simply reported the incident and allowed the radio station to handle it. Wisely, the station fired Mueller. Not so wisely, Mueller sued Swift for slander in 2015, claiming he never touched her and suffered damages including the loss of his job as well as other professional opportunities as a result of her claims.
Swift did not stand by and allow Mueller to contradict her and filed a counterclaim for assault and battery. In May 2017, the court threw out Mueller’s claims of slander and the matter only went forward on intentional interference with a contract and tortious interference with prospective business relations (in addition to the counts in Swift’s counterclaim). Interestingly, after Swift testified her attorney moved that she be dismissed from Mueller’s suit altogether as Mueller had not presented sufficient evidence to show that Swift had interfered with anything. The judge agreed and Swift was dismissed as a defendant–only her mother and Bell, her radio manager remained. Mueller didn’t win against the remaining defendants either. In addition to finding that Mueller groped Swift the jury also found that neither Swift’s mother nor her radio manager did anything wrong–they had not tortuously interfered with anything regarding Mueller’s career. Bottom line: Mueller lost all around.
Swift only sued for $1.00 and that is what the jury awarded but after the verdict the ever-classy Swift acknowledged her privileged position in society and said, “I will be making donations in the near future to multiple organization that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.” Is there anyone cooler than Taylor Swift? We at PROOF don’t think so and want to add our thank you to the long list of thank yous she has been getting since taking up this fight. Thank you, Taylor you’re “Fearless!”