David Mueller, the DJ who infamously groped Taylor Swift, has a new gig.
Mueller is going by the name “Stonewall Jackson” at KIX 92.7 FM in Greenwood, Miss., where he tested the waters DJing at night before transitioning to a morning show position.
“I also told him if he just wanted to come and work for six months to a year to get his radio career back on track, I was OK with that,” Delta Radio Network president and CEO Larry Fuss told Radio Ink this week. “He said, ‘No, I’m coming to stay long-term.'”
“I was roundly criticized in a Facebook group for offering Mueller a job, but regardless of what he may or may not have done, does he really deserve to be banned from radio for life? He recently lost his sister to cancer and also had to put his 94-year-old mother in a nursing facility, so the man deserves a break,” Fuss said. “On top of that, he has lots of talent and will sound great on KIX-92.7.”
Mueller was terminated from his $150,000-a-year job at KYGO FM in Denver after a 2013 incident in which he was accused of reaching up Swift’s skirt and grabbing her backside.
He sued Swift over his firing and the subsequent damage to his reputation, and in August 2017, a Denver jury determined the DJ had indeed groped the singer and that she was within her rights to contact his boss.
Swift, 28, countersued for assault and battery and won a symbolic $1 judgment against Mueller, then pledged to financially support sexual assault survivors’ causes.
Mueller claimed to have paid Swift’s judgment using a $1 Sacagawea coin and has previously complained over how difficult it was to find work following the incident and trial.
Fuss admitted that even Mueller himself thought the hiring was little more than a publicity stunt at first, but emphasized that he believes in Mueller’s innocence.
“We talked a lot over a period of a couple of months and I eventually flew to Minneapolis to meet him. When he explains the Taylor Swift incident, he’s either the world’s best liar, or he’s telling the truth,” Fuss said. “Having heard him tell the story, I’m inclined to believe him and the rest of the staff seems to believe him as well. The evidence was rather inconclusive, but the jury was apparently star-struck with Taylor Swift and found in her favor. It was a civil trial, not a criminal trial, so the burden of proof was much lower.”
A rep for Swift did not immediately return a request for comment.