Garth Brooks has responded in court to a sexual assault and battery lawsuit anonymously filed last week by his former hair and makeup artist.
In court documents filed Tuesday, Brooks identifies himself as the John Doe who initiated a case in Mississippi federal court Sept. 13 by asking a judge to preemptively declare sexual misconduct allegations from a woman — identified then as Jane Roe — to be untrue and award him damages for emotional distress and defamation.
The allegations first became public when Roe filed a civil lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court accusing the country superstar of raping her in a Los Angeles hotel room in 2019. Brooks, who denies all of Roe’s allegations, calls himself “the victim of a shakedown” that began four years ago.
In Tuesday’s amended complaint, Brooks also names the woman accusing him of sexual assault.
The intention of the anonymous complaint, in which Brooks is described as “a celebrity and public figure who resides in Tennessee,” was “to avoid the irreparable harm to reputation that he seeks to prevent (through) this action,” the filing states. In a separate filing, Brooks denounces Roe’s legal team for naming him in her California lawsuit before the Mississippi court could rule whether to allow Brooks to continue the case with a pseudonym.
Roe’s lawyers “wrested the decision” from the court by identifying Brooks as the defendant in her sexual assault case in an Oct. 3 CNN article, which they say published before her suit was “available on a public docket.”
Brooks’ lawyers note that in an Oct. 1 filing, Roe’s lawyers said she respects the court’s authority “to decide whether Mr. Doe can proceed under a pseudonym” and “will wait until later this week to make sure there is no objection from this Honorable Court before filing her California action in this manner.”
In a statement, Roe’s lawyers — Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen and Hayley Baker — denounced Brooks for naming their client in his filing.
“Garth Brooks just revealed his true self. Out of spite and to punish, he publicly named a rape victim,” the attorneys said. “With no legal justification, Brooks outed her because he thinks the laws don’t apply to him. On behalf of our client, we will be moving for maximum sanctions against him immediately.”
Wigdor denounced Brooks’s claims that he was being extorted by Roe.
“He is far from the victim of a shakedown, and in fact offered millions of dollars to keep this matter from becoming public,” he said.
In his amended complaint, Brooks describes Roe as an “independent contractor” who worked with him “for approximately 15 years before she relocated from Tennessee to Mississippi in May 2020.”
After moving, she started requesting assistance amid financial difficulties, with Brooks complying “out of loyalty,” he claims. She then allegedly made more demands for financial assistance, and when he declined to offer her a salary and medical benefits, she levied “false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct she claims occurred years ago,” Brooks says.
He first learned of Roe’s allegations when her lawyers sent a letter in July with what he calls “fabricated allegations,” according to his Tuesday filing. Her lawyers allegedly asked Brooks to pay “millions of dollars” in exchange for not filing the lawsuit in what he calls “blackmail correspondence.”
In light of “Roe’s willingness to proceed under her name in this litigation” and her team publicly naming Brooks in the California lawsuit, Brooks filed an amended complaint without pseudonyms.
In their Oct. 1 opposition to Brooks’ motion to proceed with a pseudonym, Roe’s lawyers wrote, “Although Ms. Roe believes that her name warrants protection and that ultimately the California court should decide that issue, she is willing to proceed using her name here if this Court believes that is necessary in denying Plaintiff’s motion.”
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