When Steven Tyler co-wrote Aerosmith's hit "Janie's Got a Gun" almost 30 years ago, he knew he wanted to help young women who had been abused.
Tyler was in Bartlett, Tennessee on Monday, Feb. 4, for the ceremony. As per Fox 13 Memphis, the home can accommodate up to 14 women who can stay in its confines until they are able to find their way back to society.
Prior he rocker saw that dream come to fruition with the opening of Janie's House, a home for abused and neglected girls just outside Atlanta last year.
Tyler also donated $500,000 to the home from “Janie’s Fund,” according to the report. The home is the second one so far in the United States, the first being in Atlanta.
“It’s God. Look at the sun,” Tyler was quoted as saying during the ceremony. “Just when the world seems over, you can turn into a butterfly.”
Tyler participated in a "scarf cutting" Wednesday at the facility at Youth Villages' Inner Harbour campus in Douglasville, Georgia.Speaking to CNN, Tyler said it was difficult to understand what the residents had been through. “You can see in their faces and hear in their voices how broken they are,” he said.
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“While I was in (rehab), I found out most of women in there were battered and beaten and abused verbally and sexually in huge numbers,” he said. “It was like seven out of 10, eight out of 10.”
The magnitude of the issue began to occur to Tyler after the success of "Janie's Got a Gun," his band's 1989 hit about a girl sexually abused by her father. The powerful video, directed by Oscar-nominated director David Fincher, helped propel the single.
Tyler participated in various charities for years but in 2015 started his own, Janie's Fund, and partnered with Youth Villages to help at-risk girls.
The singer, who is the father of three daughters and a son, was deeply involved in the project, even helping with the interior design.
“It breaks my heart to have left this tour early. The band has never played better,” he wrote, going on to reveal that he had returned to the US to undergo an unspecified procedure.
“I give you all an A+ for creative speculations but I certainly did not have a heart attack or a seizure,” Tyler stated. “I had to have a procedure that only my doc in the States could perform.”
