Garth Brooks, in Nashville, Tennessee, February 29, 2024. GEORGE WALKER IV / AP
Garth Brooks, country singer considered the king of the genre in the United States, is accused of rape by his former hairdresser and makeup artist, according to a complaint filed Thursday, October 3, in a Los Angeles court.
The facts date back to October 2019 according to this woman, whose anonymity is preserved in the document. She accuses the singer, who was in the Californian city to perform at the Grammy Awards, of raping her in a hotel suite, the only room he had reserved for the two of them. The plaintiff alleges that earlier in 2019 while she was at Garth Brooks’ house, he appeared naked in front of her, grabbed her hands and placed them on his genitals.
She says she had worked for Garth Brooks’ wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, since 1999, and also began working in 2017 for the singer, now 62.
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The woman’s complaint also says that the singer discussed the sexual fantasies she gave him, and that he sent her explicit messages. Traumatized by the rape, she explains having thought about committing suicide and having been forced to continue working for him due to financial difficulties, of which he was aware and from which he took advantage.
She is represented by Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer famous in the United States for his involvement in numerous cases of sexual violence revealed by the #metoo movement.
“Today’s complaint demonstrates 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.”insisted the lawyer in a press release.
According to the complaint, Garth Brooks filed a preemptive complaint in Mississippi in September, where he claims to be the victim of defamation and attempted extortion, claiming that this woman demanded several million dollars from him in July to avoid prosecution .
The singer is a country legend, who exploded in the 1990s. In 2015, he overtook Elvis Presley in the ranking of solo singers who sold the most albums in the United States.
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