Aerosmith icon Steven Tyler opens home for abused women in Tennessee
In this May 7, 2016, file photo, Steven Tyler attends “To the Rescue: Saving Animal Lives” Gala and Fundraiser held at Paramount Pictures Studio in Los Angeles. Tyler is again demanding that President Donald Trump stop using the band’s songs at rallies. Tyler’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the president Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018, a day after the song “Livin’ on the Edge” was heard playing at a Trump rally in West Virginia. Image: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Aerosmith frontman and rock icon Steven Tyler flew to the Mid-South recently for the scarf-cutting of “Janie’s House,” a home for abused women and girls supported by his “Janie’s Fund” organization.
Tyler was in Bartlett, Tennessee on Monday, Feb. 4, for the ceremony. As per Fox 13 Memphis, the home can accommodate up to 14 women who can stay in its confines until they are able to find their way back to society.
Tyler also donated $500,000 (around P26.1 million) to the home from “Janie’s Fund,” according to the report. The home is the second one so far in the United States, the first being in Atlanta.
“It’s God. Look at the sun,” Tyler was quoted as saying during the ceremony. “Just when the world seems over, you can turn into a butterfly.”
Apart from putting up the homes, Tyler is involved with the women who enter “Janie’s House.” He often visits them in the house in Atlanta where he takes his time talking to them and learning about their lives.
“I’m gonna bring this Janie’s Fund with me wherever I go,” he added. “It’s like a dream come true.”
Tyler plans to put up another “Janie’s House” in Las Vegas sometime in 2019.
“Janie’s Fund” takes after his band Aerosmith’s 1989 song “Janie’s Got a Gun”. Tyler, in an interview published on Billboard Magazine’s August 1998 issue, was asked about Aerosmith’s upcoming album “Pump” which featured the song, notably for taking on a social problem like incest.
Tyler, then, shared that he wrote “Janie’s Got a Gun” upon reading a Time article about kids who killed themselves after being sexually abused.
“It just, it kind of sparked something in me…” he said. “I got really angry with the fact that nobody was paying homage to the children that are sexually abused by Mom or Dad.” Cody Cepeda/JB
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