Garth Brooks is being sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a former hair and makeup artist.
The unidentified accuser, who is listed as “Jane Roe” in the lawsuit, alleges that the country artist raped her in May 2019 on a work trip and engaged in other forms of sexual misconduct while she worked for him.
According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in California Superior Court, the rape occurred after the two traveled together alone on Brooks’ private jet. The suit says that when they arrived at their hotel in Los Angeles, Roe “could not believe that Brooks had booked a hotel suite with one bedroom and she did not have a separate room.”
Brooks “appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, completely naked” and Roe felt “trapped in the room alone with Brooks,” the lawsuit alleges.
“As she began to panic, he grabbed her hands and pulled her into the next room and onto the bed where she could not escape his physical domination,” the suit reads.
The rape was “painful and traumatic,” according to the lawsuit, which says that at one point, Brooks “held her small body upside down by her feet and penetrated her.”
In a statement to HuffPost, Brooks said he has been “hassled” with “threats” and “lies” if he did not write “a check for many millions of dollars.”
“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face,” Brooks said. “Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money. In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of — ugly acts no human should ever do to another. We filed suit against this person nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character. We filed it anonymously for the sake of families on both sides.”
According to the lawsuit, after the alleged rape, Brooks continued to tell Roe his sexual fantasies and said that he wanted to have a threesome with her and his wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood.
The suit also alleges that Brooks exposed his genitals to Roe, changed clothes in front of her and sent her sexually explicit texts.
According to the lawsuit, while Roe was at Brooks’ home for work in 2019, he walked out of the shower naked and “grabbed her hands and forced them” onto his genitals, while telling her he fantasized about her giving him oral sex.
In October 2019, Brooks again hired Roe to do his hair and makeup in Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges that when Roe went to Brooks’ room to do his hair and make-up, “he was on the bed, face down, wearing loose shorts and holding his crotch, and made it clear that he wanted to do what he had done before in Los Angeles” with Roe earlier that year. Roe “managed to escape the situation,” according to the suit.
During a phone conversation in 2020, Roe told Brooks that she was “frightened” of him, to which Brooks responded by asking Roe to “work together forever,” according to the lawsuit.
After Roe’s lawyers reached out to Brooks to tell him she was prepared to file a lawsuit over the alleged assault, Brooks filed a lawsuit against her on Sept. 13.
“Defendant’s allegations are not true,” Brooks’ lawsuit states. “Defendant is well aware, however, of the substantial, irreparable damage such false allegations would do to Plaintiff’s well-earned reputation as a decent and caring person, along with the unavoidable damage to his family and the irreparable damage to his career and livelihood that would result if she made good on her threat to ‘publicly file’ her fabricated lawsuit.”
Roe’s lawyers said in a statement that they applauded her for coming forward.
“We are confident that Brooks will be held accountable for his actions and his efforts to silence our client through the filing of a preemptive complaint in Mississippi was nothing other than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation,” the statement reads. “We encourage others who may have been victimized to contact us as no survivor should suffer in silence.”
Brooks, who has a residency in Vegas, said in the statement that he wants to “play music tonight.”
“I want to continue our good deeds going forward,” he said. “It breaks my heart these wonderful things are in question now. I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.