Garth Brooks sued for sexual harassment over alleged rape of employee

Country music icon Garth Brooks has been sued by a makeup artist and hairdresser who accuses him of raping her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2019.

Jane Roe alleges sexual assault, battery and violations of California laws protecting against intimidation and coercion in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. In addition to the rape, she claims he repeatedly groped her and subjected her to sexually explicit comments.

Before filing the lawsuit, Brooks — while in settlement negotiations with the unnamed plaintiff — preemptively filed a lawsuit in federal court in Mississippi to stop the accuser from suing, the lawsuit says. In that lawsuit, Brooks, who filed as “John Doe” and described himself as a “celebrity and public figure residing in Tennessee,” alleged that he was being blackmailed because he refused to give the accuser a raise and the Pay for health insurance.

“Brooks desperately wants to prevent his millions of fans from knowing about the terrible things he said and did to a young employee who did nothing to deserve such treatment,” the complaint says.

Thursday’s lawsuit details how Brooks forcibly raped the accuser as she traveled with him to a show in Los Angeles in May 2019. When they arrived at the hotel, the singer grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed, the lawsuit says. Roe claims he then “held her small body upside down by her feet and penetrated her.”

The lawsuit alleges the attack was premeditated because Brooks only booked a single suite with no separate rooms and insisted that no other employees accompany him on the trip.

After the alleged rape, Roe said that the country star “groped her breasts whenever he could” and forced her to expose her breasts to him. He repeatedly threatened to “mess” with her before becoming visibly angry when she refused, the lawsuit says.

“Her fears that he would subject her to unwanted sex were justified when Ms. Roe went into Brooks’ room one morning to beautify herself and put on makeup. He was lying face down on the bed, wearing baggy shorts and holding his crotch. “ says the complaint. “She narrowly escaped another sexual assault because he was late and there were other people waiting to pick him up.”

The situation came to a head in 2020 when Roe said in an email that was also sent to Brooks’ wife that she could not “work in an environment where explicit sexual comments are made.”

More will follow.