Danny Elfman, the man behind the original Batman score and founder of the 80s New Wave band Oingo Boingo, has been accused of sexual abuse for the second time since July.
The new suit appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court by a woman cloaked in anonymity under the name “Jane Doe XX” listed in the legal writ the Oscar-nominated composer abused and harassed her from 1997 to 2002 when she was a 21-year-old film student.
“The allegations of misconduct made against Mr. Elfman are baseless and absurd. His legal team is assessing all options and he will vigorously defend these claims in court.”
Danny Elfman spokesperson
According to details, Elfman is accused of taking advantage of his clout and prestige. When Danny Elfman calls, younger people how to glean from his wisdom show up. And when they did, he would allegedly strip naked and masturbate while she lay sleeping next to him.
The details are eerily similar to those from his first sexual abuse claim, in which The Guardian (UK) discovered Elfman paid $830,000 because of a legal settlement.
Danny Elfman Sexual Abuse Accusation Details
More details in the lawsuit provide some alarming accusations, including he would routinely take off all his clothing, asking her to do the same. That’s the presumed thought of power. Ms. Doe XX agreed to do what Elfman asked because she wanted that man to be her mentor.
However, she “always felt the imbalance of power and pressure to act a certain way as a condition of [their] continued relationship.”
Danny Elfman, 70, is said to routinely “sleep in the same bad” as his alleged victim and would “masturbate over her…without her knowledge or consent.” Possibly in an effort to make the loudest bang and accrue the largest settlement, Elfman’s company, Musica de la Muerte, was also named as a defendant in the complaint, which demanded a jury trial.
What took so long? For many victims of sexual abuse, it’s fear or shame.
Given it’s 2023, Ms. Doe XX has been living with this pain in silence for two decades. However, her inspiration to come forward was reading a Rolling Stone about the first sexual abuse allegations from Nomi Abadi, a 35-year-old musician and composer, who alleged Elfman had assaulted her between 2015 and 2016.
He is Danny Elfman. She is not. He was 47 at the time. She was 21. So, when that guy calls her up and treats the woman as a “consultant and protégé,” you answer the phone and do what you can to remain in his good graces. Today, she believes those calls were times of “grooming” to “sexually abuse and exploit” her, the suit said.
Doe’s complaint said Elfman and his company engaged in “coverups” of the alleged sexual assaults of both women.
