According to their accounts, Ashton maintained numerous secret years-long relationships with young fans, most in their early 20s or teenagers when they met. Their stories mimicked Bowling and Ramsbottom’s. VICE also spoke with seven more women who were over 18 when they interacted with Ashton.
It claims that by using the Bassnectar brand to allegedly recruit underage girls for sex, Ashton violated federal sex trafficking laws that outlaw the use of interstate commerce for that purpose.īowling and Ramsbottom both independently shared their stories with VICE, as well as texts and emails with Ashton that support their claims. “It was abundantly clear that Bassnectar was targeting and engaging in commercial sex acts with minors and utilizing his shows and organizations to accomplish the exploitation of young girls for his own sexual gratification,” the lawsuit reads. The lawsuit also names as defendants the management and production companies Ashton worked with, Redlight Management and C3 Presents, as well as his record label, touring company, and the charity he launched, Interactive Giving Fund, claiming they “knowingly participated in or benefited from facilitating a venture that they knew, or should have known, to be engaging in sex trafficking.” Both say Ashton gave them cash, unsolicited, after they had sex with him and that he encouraged them to send him naked photos when they were minors. On April 5, Ramsbottom and Bowling filed a lawsuit against Ashton, claiming they were victims of sex trafficking and child pornography. According to Ramsbottom, they met at a hotel in Memphis, where he was headlining Beale Street Music Festival.
The year prior, in 2013, another Bassnectar fan, Rachel Ramsbottom, said that she also met and had sex with Lorin Ashton when she was 17. After her birthday, she said he no longer visited her, and began flying her out to his concerts across the country.
Bowling recalled Ashton coming to see her twice more that summer before she turned 18. According to Bowling, they had sex almost as soon as they got to the room and continued to over the course of the week. At his behest, Bowling recalls lying to her friends and family about what she was doing and tucking herself into a hotel with him in Lexington. A few weeks later, she said that Ashton flew to her home state of Kentucky. Instead, she said that he pulled her behind some bushes out of sight that night and talked to her for hours, eventually kissing her goodnight and sending her off with $300. She said that Ashton, 36 at the time, comped her tickets to the music festival, but she was 17 and she told him she couldn’t get inside the 18-plus event. “It was the most isolating, terrifying, magical moment.”Īccording to Bowling, the first time she met Ashton was on the Las Vegas Strip, the weekend of the Electric Daisy Carnival in 2014. “I reflect on a lot and think wow that's creepy and disturbing and painful,” Bowling recalled. And while most in the crowd swayed in euphoria around her, blissfully unaware of the deeper meaning of that moment, she had a different experience. Surrounded by the rest of the crowd, she stared up at Bassnectar-real name Lorin Ashton-in awe as he played a quote from the film American Beauty (“Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it”) and played the famous rose petal visuals on the screen behind him before transitioning to a track Bowling said she sent him-a song her college dance team performed to.Īccording to Bowling, Ashton introduced her to the movie, which tells the story of a middle aged man who becomes sexually obsessed with a teenager, and stars Kevin Spacey, who was later accused of making sexual advances on a teenager himself. Despite planning to spend the night with him, she was not backstage-their relationship was a secret.
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