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Now that he’s entered his country phase, we love to poke a bit of fun at Steven Tyler. But the Aerosmith frontman was busy doing all sorts of good during Sunday night’s GRAMMYs, hosting a viewing party that raised a whopping $2.4 million for sexual abuse victims.
And he did it from afar, but with star power. The gala ball went down at RED Studios in Hollywood while the GRAMMYs were happening in New York City, and the whole thing served as a benefit for Janie’s Fund, an organization that, according to Forbes, was created by Tyler in partnership with Youth Villages. You probably don’t need to be told that the fund is named after Aerosmith’s 1989 hit “Janie’s Got a Gun.”
The party was streamed on Tyler’s Facebook page, and the hashtag #JamForJanie spread across social media and people donated to the case.
In addition to the GRAMMYs live screening, Tyler performed with his country band Loving Mary to about 500 people, and among the guests and performers at RED were Alice Cooper, Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, and Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer.
“We’re not here just to help a few girls beat the odds, but really to radicalize the system so that we can beat the odds for all girls.” –@IamStevenT pic.twitter.com/GeHSm2JnGS
— JaniesFund (@JaniesFund) January 29, 2018
Forbes reports that Tyler and Loving Mary performed Aerosmith classics like Aerosmith “Dream On” and “Sweet Emotion,” as well as, among other songs, a cover of Janis Joplin’s “Piece Of My Heart.” Bettencourt and Tyler teamed up on Extreme’s 1990 mega-hit “More Than Words.”
“The whole reason I’m in this is because I know what happens to a girl if she’s sexually abused at 14, sent out on the street to sell crack at 15, her mother has her hook at 16, she’s bringing johns home at 17 because she looks older,” Tyler told Forbes ahead of the event. “At 18 she’s left off at a bus station in Oklahoma, doesn’t know where she is or what’s going on. She’s broken. Now, she, for the rest of her life, has a problem with sex, has a problem with men coming on to her. There are men in America that murder people, they get caught with a gun in their hand they get seven fucking years! She gets 70 years. Seventy years of her life has been ruined and that fucking kills me. That kills me.”
Tyler responded to the overwhelming support via Facebook. Read his message below.