Randy Madden, the 45-year-old wannabe rocker who bombed his 2009 American Idol audition belting out Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” is now staring down six felony counts after cops say he had unlawful sex with a minor – and the twisted kicker? The guy used to front a band called Sexual Harassment.

Ventura County prosecutors slapped Madden with a laundry list of stomach-turning charges Monday: unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, oral copulation of a person under 18, anal and genital penetration by a foreign object, sending harmful matter, luring, and trying to stop a witness from snitching. Court docs say the alleged encounters went down between July and September 2025, and the victim is protected by a criminal protective order.

Madden got pinched October 30, tossed in jail, then walked free November 4 after posting $100,000 bail. He pleaded not guilty via Zoom and is due back in court November 13. His lawyer hasn’t responded to requests for comment, but sources close to the case say the evidence includes texts and digital trails that prosecutors claim paint a damning picture.

The band detail is the one that has the internet reeling. Before his 15 minutes of Idol rejection fame – where Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, and Kara DioGuardi all sent him packing – Madden gigged around Southern California in a group literally named Sexual Harassment. Old MySpace pages and gig flyers dug up by sleuths show the band playing dive bars in the early 2000s, with Madden as lead singer. “It was supposed to be edgy punk humor back then,” one former bandmate told TMZ anonymously, “but looking at it now… yeah, it aged like milk in the sun.”

Madden’s Idol audition clip has resurfaced like a bad rash, racking up millions of views as people connect the dots. The clean-cut 27-year-old who told judges he worked as a vocal coach and dreamed of Hollywood glory now looks like a cautionary tale. Season 8 crowned Kris Allen, launched Adam Lambert into superstardom, and quietly forgot about Randy Madden – until this.

This isn’t the first American Idol alum to crash and burn in spectacular fashion. Just last year, season 16’s Benjamin Glaze – the guy Katy Perry kissed on the lips during his audition – got slapped with child porn possession charges after cops found over 700 illegal images and videos on his phone. And back in 2018, season 16 contestant Ron Bultongez turned himself in for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old. The show’s producers have stayed mum on Madden’s arrest, but insiders say background checks have gotten “way stricter” in recent seasons.

Women’s advocacy groups are already sounding the alarm. “When the red flags are this blatant – a band literally named Sexual Harassment, then decades later charged with crimes against a minor – it’s chilling,” said a spokesperson for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “This isn’t random. This is a pattern that was ignored for too long.”

Madden’s neighbors in Thousand Oaks told local reporters he kept to himself in recent years, doing odd jobs and occasional open-mic nights. One said he still bragged about the Idol audition: “He’d play the clip on his phone at barbecues like it was his greatest hit.”

Prosecutors haven’t released the exact age of the alleged victim, but California law treats any sexual act with someone under 18 as a serious felony when the perpetrator is over 21 – and the “foreign object” charge alone can carry years behind bars. If convicted on all counts, Madden could be looking at decades in state prison and lifetime sex-offender registration.

For now, the former rocker who thought he was “livin’ on a prayer” is living a nightmare of his own making – and that old band name is the punchline nobody asked for.