(Headline USA) Woke country-music star Garth Brooks famously sang about having friends in low places.
Now it appears that is allegedly where he sought his sexual partners as well.
Brooks joins the #MeToo wall of shame as the latest in a long succession of wealthy and influential left-leaning men who stand accused of taking advantage of a power-imbalance to exploit female subordinates for their own prurient gratification.
A woman claiming to be former hair-and-makeup stylist for ’90s superstar alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday that he raped her in a Los Angeles hotel in 2019.
The woman, going by the pseudonym Jane Roe, filed the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Brooks, in a statement, forcefully denied the allegations and acknowledged that he had tried to get a court to prevent the lawsuit from being filed.
The woman says in the lawsuit she had worked for Brooks’ wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, since 1999, and had started also working for Brooks in 2017.
She said the assault occurred when she traveled from Nashville to Los Angeles with Brooks, who was performing with soul singer Sam Moore at a Grammy Awards tribute to Moore in October 2019.
Brooks normally traveled with an entourage, but the two were alone on his private jet, and he booked just one hotel suite for both of them, the lawsuit said, according to the Associated Press.
The woman said that, while in the suite, Brooks appeared naked in the doorway to the bedroom and raped her.
He then allegedly proceeded as though nothing had happened and expected her to do his hair and makeup immediately after.
The lawsuit also said that earlier that same year, when she was at Brooks’ home, he had appeared naked in front of her, grabbed her hands and put them on his genitals.
Brooks filed a preemptive lawsuit in federal court in Mississippi last month, in which both he and the woman were anonymous.
In court filings in that case, the plaintiff, going by John Doe, said the allegations were “wholly untrue.”
He said he first learned of them in July when she threatened to publicly sue him unless he gave her millions of dollars.
He asked a judge to stop the woman from “intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and false light invasion of privacy,” the AP reported.
“For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars,” Brooks’s statement said. “It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face.”
Brooks filed the case anonymously “for the sake of families on both sides,” he said.
“I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be,” his statement concluded.
The woman’s suit also says Brooks exposed himself to her many other times and talked about sexual fantasies with her and sent her explicit text messages.
She said she was forced to keep working for Brooks because of financial hardship, which he knew about and took advantage of.
An email to the woman’s attorney asking whether she had reported her allegations to police was not immediately answered.
The 62-year-old Oklahoma-born Brooks was once considered one of Nashville’s most beloved stars, but in recent years he has alienated much of his former fanbase through insulting and divisive political commentary.
He previously called boycotters of his Nashville bar “a**holes” in 2023 after he received backlash for stating he would sell Bud Light at his establishment.
#GarthBrooks defiantly sells #BudLight at his new Nashville bar and calls boycotters 'as*holes'#BoycottGarthBrooks pic.twitter.com/gYQ60vWd9P
— Giordano Bruno (@GioBruno1600) June 8, 2023
Brooks also performed at President Joe Biden’s inauguration and claimed it wasn’t a “political statement” but “a statement of unity.”
JUST IN: Country music star Garth Brooks accused of r*ping makeup artist in a hotel room who worked for his wife.
The alleged assault happened at an LA Grammy event in May of 2019.
The following details may be disturbing to some:
According to the lawsuit, Brooks… pic.twitter.com/YC510YHE3G
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 3, 2024
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
