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Garth Brooks accused of rape in lawsuit against hair and makeup artist
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Garth Brooks accused of rape in lawsuit against hair and makeup artist

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who says she worked as a hair and makeup stylist for Garth Brooks alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday that he raped her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2019.

The woman is not using her name and is referred to as Jane Roe in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. An email seeking comment from Brooks’ publicist and attorney was not immediately returned.

The woman says in the lawsuit that she worked for Brooks’ wife, a country singer Trisha Jaarwoodsince 1999, and had also started working for Brooks in 2017.

She said the attack happened as she traveled from Nashville to Los Angeles with Brooks, who was performing with soul singer Sam Moore at a Grammy Awards tribute to Moore in October 2019.

Brooks normally traveled with an entourage, but the two were alone on his private jet and he booked only one hotel suite for the two of them, the lawsuit said.

The woman claims he appeared naked in the bedroom doorway in the suite and raped her.

The suit states he then proceeded as if nothing had happened and expected her to do his hair and makeup immediately afterwards.

She claims that earlier in 2019, when she was at Brooks’ home, he appeared in front of her naked, grabbed her hands and placed them on his genitals.

The lawsuit says Brooks filed his own preemptive lawsuit last month in federal court in Mississippi, in which both he and the woman are anonymous.

In court filings in that case, the accuser, named John Doe, says the allegations are “completely untrue,” and he first heard about them in July when she threatened to publicly sue him unless he gave her millions of dollars.

He is asking a judge to restrain the woman from “intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and false light invasion of privacy.”

The woman’s suit also states that Brooks exposed himself to her many other times, talked to her about sexual fantasies and sent her explicit text messages.

She said she was forced to continue working for Brooks because of financial problems, which he knew about and took advantage of.

An email to the woman’s lawyer asking whether she had reported her allegations to police was not immediately answered.

Brooks, 62, was the biggest star in country music in the 1990s, with hits like “Friends in Low Places” and “The Thunder Rolls.” He brought arena rock theatrics to his concerts and a pop music sensibility to his recordings. He had tremendous success beyond the typical country audience.

He married fellow countryman Yearwood in 2005. There was no immediate response to a message to a Yearwood representative seeking comment on the lawsuit.