A hair and makeup stylist who had worked for Trisha Yearwood and eventually Garth Brooks accused the legendary singer of rape in a recently filed lawsuit.
The woman, who used the name Jane Roe in the suit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, said she had worked for Yearwood, Brooks’ wife, since 1999 and for Brooks since 2017, The Associated Press reported.
Roe said she traveled with Brooks from Nashville to Los Angeles when he was performing with Sam Moore at a Grammy Awards tribute in 2019.
Brooks typically traveled with an entourage, but on this trip, it was just him and the stylist on his private jet, and only one hotel suite, with a single bedroom, was booked for them to share, CNN reported.
Roe claimed in the suit she felt “trapped in the room alone with Brooks.”
She said while in the suite he was naked in the doorway to his room and eventually raped her.
Roe then said that he went through the rest of the preparation for the event as if nothing happened, expecting her to do his hair and makeup after the alleged assault.
She also said that earlier that same year he had also appeared naked and grabbed her hands, placing them on his genitals.
The woman claimed Brooks exposed himself to her several times, talked about his sexual fantasies and sent explicit text messages, but she continued to work for him because of financial hardship which he allegedly took advantage of, reported the AP.
Brooks filed a lawsuit in Mississippi last month trying to block Roe’s suit. Neither he nor the woman were identified in that case, with Brooks using the name John Doe and saying that the allegations were “wholly untrue.” He claimed he learned about the allegations in July when he said she threatened to sue unless he paid her millions of dollars, the AP reported.
Brooks in the suit said that the allegations came after he did not give Roe “salaried employment and medical benefits,” CNN reported.
“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 said in a statement to CNN.
“Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money. In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of — ugly acts no human should ever do to another,” he said. “We filed suit against this person nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character. We filed it anonymously for the sake of families on both sides.”
Brooks in that lawsuit requested a judge to prevent Roe’s suit to protect him from “intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and false light invasion of privacy.”
CNN asked Yearwood’s representatives for comment but did not hear back
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