Garth Brooks Faces Rape Allegation in Lawsuit

Singer had filed a case arguing the accusations by a former employee are false
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 3, 2024 5:45 PM CDT
Garth Brooks Faces Rape Allegation in Lawsuit
Garth Brooks speaks during a news conference at Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity's 2024 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in St. Paul, Minn., on Monday.   (Leila Navidi /Star Tribune via AP)

A lawsuit filed Thursday accuses Garth Brooks of rape, saying the country music star preyed on a woman who worked for him and then tried to silence her. The filing says the plaintiff worked as a hair and makeup stylist for Brooks from 2017 to about 2020, the New York Times reports. Brooks repeatedly sexually harassed her during that time, the lawsuit says, and raped her during a work trip. Representatives for Brooks, 62, did not immediately comment on the accusations, which the star previously had denied, per CNN.

The suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuses Brooks of sexual assault and battery, repeatedly exposing his genitals and buttocks; talking about sex and sharing sexual fantasies with the employee; regularly changing his clothing in front of her; and sending sexually explicit text messages. In one instance when the woman was working at Brooks' home, the suit says, he walked out of the shower naked, then "grabbed her hands and forced them" onto his genitals.

Thursday's filing was in response to one made two weeks ago in Mississippi. That suit, which did not use names, addressed what it called "false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct she claims occurred years ago." The plaintiff, said to be a celebrity living in Tennessee, asked a judge to declare the woman's accusations false, per the Times; the California filing identifies the woman in the nameless suit as the former employee. Her lawyers this week called the Mississippi suit an attempt to silence her. The woman was first hired in 1999 to handle hair and makeup for Brooks' wife, Trisha Yearwood, per CNN. (More Garth Brooks stories.)

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