When Taylor Swift won her suit against former Colorado D.J. David Mueller — she accused him of groping her at a 2013 photo-op — she requested that he pay her a symbolic $1.
As previously reported, Swift told the new “Silence Breakers” issue of Time magazine that she never received the $1 judgment she won during the August trial. “When the jury found in my favor, the man who sexually assaulted me was court-ordered to give me a symbolic $1,” she claimed. “To this day he has not paid me that dollar, and I think that act of defiance is symbolic in itself.”
The 10-time Grammy winner finally received her $1 — in the form of a Sacagawea coin. The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, December 6, that Mueller provided a letter showing the payment was sent on November 28. He previously told the AP that the coin featuring a Native American woman was a “final jab” at the pop singer.
Mueller sued Swift for defamation when he lost his job at the country music station 98.5 KYGO after she claimed he grabbed her butt during a meet and greet — she then countersued him and won the case.
“The brave men and women who have come forward this year have all moved the needle in terms of letting people know that this abuse of power shouldn’t be tolerated. Going to court to confront this type of behavior is a lonely and draining experience, even when you win, even when you have the financial ability to defend yourself,” she wrote to Time in her first interview since the trial, which was featured in their “Person of the Year” issue.
Mueller was initially seeking $3 million in damages from Swift in his original lawsuit but it was dismissed in August after a judge ruled that he couldn’t prove that the singer got him fired from his job. Swift’s lawyer, J. Douglas Baldridge, said at the time that she was “seeking $1 to show women you can say no.”
