Garth Brooks accused of rape in lawsuit from hair-and-makeup artist

AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who says she worked as a hair-and-makeup stylist for Garth Brooks alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday that he raped her in a Los Angeles hotel in 2019.

The woman does not use her name and goes by Jane Roe in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Brooks forcefully denied the allegations in a statement and acknowledged he tried to get a court to stop Thursday’s 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 says.

The woman alleges that in the suite, he appeared naked in the doorway to the bedroom and raped her.

The suit says that he then proceeded as though nothing had happened and expected her to do his hair and makeup immediately after.

The woman’s lawsuit alleges that earlier in 2019, 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 him and the woman are anonymous.

In court filings in that case, the plaintiff, going by John Doe, says the allegations are “wholly untrue,” and 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.”

“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’ statement said. “It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face.”

Brooks said he filed the case anonymously “for the sake of families on both sides.”

“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 the biggest star in country music of the 1990s, with hits including “Friends in Low Places” and “The Thunder Rolls.” He brought arena-rock theatrics to his concerts and a pop-music sensibility to his recordings. He had huge success that went beyond typical country audiences.

He married fellow country star Yearwood in 2005. There was no immediate response to a message to a Yearwood representative seeking comment on the lawsuit.