“At the time, I thought Tait’s behavior was an anomaly. But the more time I spent in Nashville circles, the more it sounded like a pattern and that I might’ve actually gotten off easy in my awkward encounter,” Phillip claims. “When the anecdotes I was hearing started seeming more dangerous and scary, instead of just sexual or romantic, I wanted to help put a stop to this potentially happening again to others.”
A Drunken Foot Massage Leads to Alleged Non-Consensual Kissing and Fondling
Another of Tait’s accusers, whom TRR identifies as “Steven,” was a touring musician in “American Idol,” Season 6, finalist Chris Sligh’s band. The band opened for Newsboys in 2010.
Steven says he was a huge DC Talk fan and looked to Tait as “kind of like a weird idol.” Two months after the show, Steven says he encountered Tait at his workplace in Brentwood, Tennessee, where Tait gave Steven his number.
Witnesses’ accounts verify that the two quickly became fast friends who went out to eat, watched movies together, and hit up local bars. Steven’s bandmates, including Sligh, recall that Tait would pay for expensive meals and alcohol when Tait invited Steven to dinner.
In January 2011, Steven recalled a time Tait invited him into Tait’s Brentwood, Tennessee, mansion and poured him a drink of Makers Mark bourbon. After three drinks, Steven said that he got sick, puked, and started to feel dizzy.
“Everything was spinning,” Steven says. “I was super embarrassed, because this dude’s like, my idol at the time, and I’m super out of it. I’m super sleepy, so he has me get on the couch, and he was like, ‘I’ll give you a foot massage.’” Shortly thereafter, Steven recalls passing out.
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Steven said what happened next made him “freeze.” He claims that he woke up to his idol “fondling my genitals, and then he was also kissing my mouth.”
Steven told TRR that he attempted to pull away in order to stop what Tait was doing to him but alleges that as he “started stirring, [Tait] kept kissing me while touching my penis.” Steven said Tait didn’t stop until he moved his head.
The aspiring musician says he told his bandmates about the foot massage but withheld the information of Tait’s alleged assault for fear that it might jeopardize Steven’s future music career.
“[Tait was] basically the top of the food chain,” Steven told TRR. “He could either [help me] get jobs, or he could not get [me] jobs. I didn’t want to screw myself.”
Steven said that he confronted Tait about the alleged incident, and Steven recalled Tait apologized and “then brushed it off like it wasn’t even a thought.”
Soon thereafter, Steven left the Christian music industry, moved away from Tennessee, and no longer had contact with Tait. A couple years after the foot massage occurred, Sligh reached out to Steven to hear the entire story of what took place that night in Tait’s home. Steven says he then confided in Sligh and another bandmate.
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