Entertainment

The DJ Found Guilty Of Groping Taylor Swift Has A New, Incredibly Awful Radio Name

by Parry Ernsberger
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Only months after being convicted, the DJ that was found guilty of groping Taylor Swift has a new job at another radio station — and the handle he's decided to go by is pretty awful. Back in 2013, Swift accused radio DJ David Mueller of grabbing her butt at a meet-and-greet. The incident was taken to trial, and Mueller was convicted of assault and battery in August 2017. Now, Mueller — who was ordered to pay Swift a symbolic $1 in damages — is back on the air, and goes by "Stonewall Jackson." Ugh.

UPDATE: Larry Fuss sent a lengthy email to Bustle in which he lists facts about Swift's case against Mueller and its outcome and also talks about the harassment he has received on social media. He also shared the following:

In the end, this is not a debate about sexual harassment. I do not condone sexual harassment, nor am I enabling it. I merely reached out to a talented radio guy who was unable to find employment and offered him a job. If that makes me a bad guy, I’m sorry. You can rest assured that Mr. Mueller will be fired immediately if any such incident occurs in the future. In the meantime, I will not be intimidated by threats from people, the vast majority of whom do not even live within the coverage area of my radio station.

EARLIER: First of all, it hasn't even been six whole months since Mueller was convicted. There are probably plenty of people out there — people who weren't convicted of assault — who have been unemployed for a lot longer, and are a lot more deserving of Mueller's latest gig. Mueller was hired by Delta Radio's KIX 92.7 in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is now co-hosting a morning show called "Jackson & Jonbob," according to the New York Daily News. (Mueller maintains his innocence. He told ABC News after the trial, ""I never grabbed her. I never had my hand under her skirt and I can pass a polygraph.”)

Not only did Delta Radio choose to hire Mueller in the first place, but now, the CEO of the station, Larry Fuss, is openly defending him and insists that he is innocent. "I sat down with him face-to-face in Minneapolis before I offered him the job and talked to him about [the conviction]," Fuss told the Daily News.

"He's either the world's best liar, or he's telling the truth. I tend to believe his version of the story and most people who have talked to him face-to-face do believe his version of the story," Fuss said. Most people, except for the eight jurors who didn't believe his version of the story and subsequently convicted him of assault in a court of law, of course.

As if hiring Mueller wasn't bad enough, Delta Radio went ahead and allowed Mueller to choose an extremely controversial alias: Stonewall Jackson. Jackson, you may recall, was a Confederate general during the Civil War. The Confederacy, you may recall, was pro-slavery. Mueller, in the wake of a very public trial with a very famous pop-star, has now decided to attach his name to the legacy of Stonewall Jackson.

Mueller's offensive new DJ name doesn't exactly come as a surprise, however. Keep in mind that this is the guy who, after being ordered to pay Swift $1 in damages at the end of the trial, opted to send her that dollar in the form of a Sacagawea coin — as a joke about women's rights. Mueller told the AP back in August 2017 that he wanted to pay Swift with the Sacagawea coin because, "I mean, if this is all about women's rights. . . this is a poke at them, a little bit," he said. "I mean, I think they made this into a publicity stunt, and this is my life."

Tons of fans have taken to Twitter, as well as to KIX's Facebook page to protest the hiring of Mueller, but their criticisms haven't fazed Fuss one bit. "Most of [the commenters] need to get a life," Fuss told the Daily News. "Most of the response I have seen this morning [Jan. 30] — there's been quite a few on our Facebook page, and none of it is radio people, none of it is local people in Mississippi. It's all originating from some Taylor Swift fan group somewhere. They're telling people to go to this station's webpage and post negative comments," he said. "It’s just people who don’t have a clue, or don’t really have any knowledge of the facts."

Still, Fuss' comments about the controversial hiring probably won't do much to calm the masses of Swift fans flocking to protest on social media.

Bustle reached out to Fuss, who said he is not making any further comments at this time.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org.