Garth Brooks has been accused of rape, assault and sexual abuse in a lawsuit filed on October 3 by a hairstylist/makeup artist who worked for him.
The country music star, 62, responded to accusations from accuser “Jane Roe” in a statement to Yahoo Entertainment, saying he is “not the man they portrayed me to be.”
In September, Brooks anonymously filed a lawsuit against the accuser, alleging attempted extortion and defamation.
Hours after Roe’s lawsuit was filed Thursday, Brooks took the stage in Las Vegas and referenced his personal issues in a social media post.
What just happened?
On October 3, the former employee filed a lawsuit against him in California Supreme Court in Los Angeles County. In the complaint, Roe, who said she started working with Brooks in 2017, alleged that he raped her, groped her, made unwanted sexual comments, undressed in her presence and sent her sexually explicit text messages in 2019.
Roe — who first dated Brooks’ wife, Trisha Yearwood, starting in 1999 — alleged that Brooks repeatedly made comments about having “threesomes” with her and Yearwood. She claimed Yearwood heard the explicit comment “at least once.” Roe said she stopped working for Brooks and moved to Mississippi around May 2021.
Brooks denied Roe’s allegations in a statement.
“Over the past two months, I have been harassed endlessly with threats, lies and tragic stories about what my future would be if I did not write a multi-million dollar check,” Brooks said. “It was like waving a loaded gun in my face. Hush money, no matter how much or how little it is, is still hush money. In my eyes, this means admitting to behavior that I am not capable of: ugly acts that no human being should ever do to another.”
It continued: “We filed suit against this individual nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character. We submitted it anonymously, in the interest of the families on both sides.”
The statement concluded: “I trust the system, I am not afraid of the truth, and I am not the man they made me out to be.”
A representative for Yearwood did not respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
Roe’s allegations against Brooks
The makeup and hair professional said Brooks found out in 2019 that she was having “financial difficulties” and started hiring her more frequently, according to her complaint.
That year, Roe was preparing to do his hair and makeup when Brooks came out of the shower “naked, with an erection” and placed her hands on his genitals, her lawsuit said. She said she rejected his request to “perform oral sex on him.”
In May 2019, Roe traveled to Los Angeles with Brooks for a taping of a Grammys tribute to Sam Moore. She said she was surprised when they were the only two passengers on Brooks’ private plane because there were usually more members of his team present. At their hotel, she said Brooks “booked a one-bedroom hotel suite” and “she did not have a separate room.” She claimed she was raped there because she felt “trapped” and unable to “escape his physical domination.”
Roe alleged that after the alleged assault, Brooks “increased the frequency with which he expressed his sexual fantasies about her out loud” and groped her breasts while working on his hair and makeup. She said he also sent her sexually explicit text messages and later took her phone and deleted the messages he sent her.
She claimed Brooks tried to rape her in October 2019 but had to leave for another engagement.
“We applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks,” Roe’s attorneys, Douglas Wigdor and Hayley Baker, told ABC News in a statement. They said the lawsuit “demonstrates that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood and in the rap and rock ‘n’ roll industries, but also in the world of country music.”
It continued: “We are confident that Brooks will be held accountable for his actions and his attempts to silence our client by filing a preemptive complaint in Mississippi was nothing more than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation. We encourage others who may have been victimized to contact us as no survivor should suffer in silence.”
Brooks sued Roe to block her lawsuit
Roe’s lawsuit notes that Brooks filed a lawsuit — under the pseudonym John Doe — against her (as Jane Roe) on September 13 in the Southern District of the Mississippi Northern Division Court.
In the complaint, obtained by Yahoo Entertainment, Brooks’ legal team said the lawsuit was filed to “obtain relief from Defendant’s continued attempt to commit extortion, defamation, false light, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress by outrageous conduct, including the publication and threat of wider publication of false allegations of sexual misconduct that would cause irreparable harm [Brooks’s] reputation, family, career and livelihood.”
Brooks, who asked for a jury trial, said in his lawsuit that Roe’s “allegations are not true.”
He said he hired her “out of loyalty, friendship and a desire to improve her personal situation,” but according to his complaint, her demands for “financial assistance” only increased. He said that when he denied her a gainful position with medical benefits, “she responded with false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct.”
Brooks’ lawsuit says he first learned of Roe’s allegations of sexual assault — “none of which has any factual basis” — in a July 17 letter her lawyers sent threatening a lawsuit. Brooks’ attorneys received a follow-up letter on August 23 stating that Roe would “refrain from publicly filing her false and defamatory lawsuit against” him “in exchange for a multi-million dollar payment.”
Brooks, who is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, says Roe knows her “false allegations” will cause “substantial, irreparable harm” to his “well-deserved reputation as a decent and caring person, along with the inevitable harm to his family and the irreparable harm ‘. damage to his career and livelihood.”
Brooks took the stage in Las Vegas hours after the lawsuit was filed
Despite the lawsuit — and the headlines — Brooks took the stage Thursday for his sold-out residency performance at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
After the show, he shared an emotional post on Instagram, thanking his fans for helping him through the show.
“If there was ever a night I really needed this, TONIGHT was that night! Thank you for my life!!!!! love, g,” he wrote.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 for survivors with free, anonymous help. 800-656-HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.
