Country music icon Garth Brooks at the Academy of Country Music Honours on August 21, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo / Getty Images
Country music icon Garth Brooks at the Academy of Country Music Honours on August 21, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo / Getty Images
Warning: mentions rape and sexual assault.
Country music star Garth Brooks has been accused of sexual assault and battery by a woman who said she worked as his hairstylist and makeup artist.
The lawsuit was filed by “Jane Roe” in a state court in California on Thursday (local time).
It details a raft of allegations against Brooks, all of which are said to have occurred during 2019. In one accusation, Roe accused Brooks of raping her in a hotel room in Los Angeles, where he had been taping a Grammy tribute performance. She also alleged he repeatedly exposed himself to her; shared sexual fantasies and used vulgar language; regularly changed his clothing in front of her; groped her; and sent sexually explicit text messages, according to CNN, who obtained the documents.
Roe claims during one alleged incident, a naked Brooks walked out of the shower and forced her to touch him sexually.
Brooks, 62, has previously denied the accuser’s claims.
An anonymous celebrity complainant - now revealed to be Brooks - had reportedly tried to prevent Roe from publicly repeating her allegations, according to a complaint he filed in Mississippi as “John Doe” in mid-September. In this lawsuit, Brooks claimed Roe’s lawyer sent him a “confidential” letter alleging sexual misconduct after he declined Roe’s request for “salaried employment and medical benefits”, CNN reports.
This previous lawsuit claimed Roe’s allegations were “not true” and that the “defendant [Roe] is well aware ... of the substantial, irreparable damage such false allegations would do to Plaintiff’s [Brooks’] 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 began working as Brooks’ hairstylist and makeup artist in 2017 but had first been hired for his now-wife, Trisha Yearwood, in 1999, according to TMZ and outlets who viewed the lawsuit.
In a statement to local media, Roe’s lawyers said Brooks’ “efforts to silence our client through the filing of a pre-emptive complaint ... was nothing other than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation”.
The lawyers also argued Brooks should not receive “special protection” as an “alleged sexual predator”, Daily Mail reports.
“The system is not in place to allow wealthy wrongdoers the ability to run workarounds on sexual assault victims who attempt to hold perpetrators accountable. This is precisely what Mr Doe [Brooks] is asking the court to help him do,” the statement read.
In a statement to CNN, Roe’s legal team said they “applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks”.
“The complaint filed today demonstrates that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood and in the rap and rock and roll industries but also in the world of country music.”
Considered one of country music’s most beloved couples, Brooks and Yearwood married in 2005. Brooks has three daughters - Taylor Mayne Pearl (born 1992), August Anna (born 1994) and Allie Colleen (born 1996) - from his previous marriage to songwriter Sandy Mahl. He and Mahl separated in 1999 and divorced in 2001.
Roe’s accusations against Brooks follow a raft of allegations emerging against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. Earlier this week it was revealed 120 additional victims had come forward to accuse Combs of sex abuse, including 25 who were underage when the alleged abuse occurred - one of whom was reportedly just 9.
The legal action is the latest against the rapper, 54, who was indicted in September on three criminal counts alleging he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fuelled sex parties.
Allegations have been building against Combs since last year, when his former partner, the singer Cassie, alleged he subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs, as well as a rape in 2018.
