Country star Garth Brooks accused of sexual assault in civil lawsuit | US News

A hair and makeup artist has accused country singer Garth Brooks of sexual assault and battery in a civil lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, CNN reported.

The anonymous accuser, referred to in the complaint as “Jane Roe,” alleges that Brooks raped her during a business trip to Los Angeles in 2019 and that he repeatedly groped her and made sexually explicit comments while she brushed his hair or that I did makeup in 2019.

Representatives for Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Roe is represented in the case by Douglas Wigdor, an attorney known as a “leading #MeToo lawyer” who previously represented women accusing Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly and Joe Biden of sexual misconduct.

Wigdor and the plaintiff’s other attorneys alleged that Brooks took advantage of the makeup artist when she was in financial trouble, first offering her paid work and then engaging in a pattern of sexual harassment and sexual assault that they detail in the lawsuit .

“Today’s complaint shows that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, in Hollywood and in the rap and rock ‘n’ roll industries, but also in the world of country music,” said Wigdor and two others Plaintiff’s lawyers, Jeanne Christensen and Hayley Baker, said in a statement to the Guardian.

Jane Roe’s lawyers said Brooks had already filed a federal lawsuit against her client in Mississippi last month to prevent her from going public with her allegations against him.

CNN previously reported on the “highly unusual litigation” in Mississippi in which an anonymous prominent plaintiff asked a federal court to “declare an accuser’s sexual assault allegations untrue and stop her from further publishing them.” The plaintiff in that case alleged that the accuser “attempted to blackmail and defame him with ‘false allegations’ that would cause ‘irreparable harm’ to his reputation and career,” CNN reported.