In one of the most shocking stories involving country music this year, today, it was revealed that Garth Brooks is facing a lawsuit for the accused sexual assault and battery of a former makeup artist from multiple instances back in 2019.
The accuser, under the name, “Jane Roe,” has alleged that Brooks had both sexually assaulted her and raped her on separate occasions.
According to CNN, Roe claims that Brooks would “repeatedly expose his genitals and buttocks, talk about sex and share sexual fantasies with her, regularly changing his clothing in front of her and sending explicit text messages.”
In her filing, she also claims that Brooks once walked out of the shower naked, “grabbed her hands and forced them” onto his genitals using sexually explicit language during an incident at his home in 2019.
Additionally, Roe claims that Brooks raped her in a hotel room during a work trip in Los Angeles later in 2019 while recording a tribute during the Grammys. According to Roe and her attorneys, Brooks had used his private jet to fly her out privately, booking a hotel suite with only one bedroom. In the hotel, she claims that he violently raped her.
In the lawsuit, Roe’s attorneys said, “Tragically, her worst fears came true when seconds later he was towering over her, his six-foot and almost 300-pound frame ready to pounce on Ms. Roe, who is less than 5 feet and 100 pounds. 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.”
In tandem with the lawsuit that became public today, much to the chagrin of Brooks who had tried to block Roe from publicly accusing him in the past, a statement from Roe’s attorneys was released.
Roe’s attorneys, Jeanne Christensen and Hayley Baker, as well as high-profile litigator, Douglas Wigdor, who has represented victims of Harvey Weinstein as well as NFL coaches, said this in a joint statement:
“We 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. 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.”
Though Brooks has denied the accuser’s claims in the past, he has yet to make a public comment on the lawsuit since it has become public.