Country music star Garth Brooks has said “I am not the man they have painted me to be” after a former employee accused him of alleged sexual assault and battery in a US lawsuit.
The former employee alleged that Brooks raped her in a hotel room in 2019 and subjected her to unwanted sexual conduct.
The woman filed the lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court. In the lawsuit, the woman alleges she was forced to keep working for Brooks because of financial hardship, which he knew about and allegedly exploited.
Two-time Grammy winner Brooks filed an anonymous lawsuit last month in Mississippi in which he asked a judge to stop the publication of “false allegations of sexual misconduct” by the woman, claiming it would “irreparably harm (his) reputation, family, career, and livelihood”.
In a statement to the PA News Agency, he said: “I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be.”
Lawyers from Wigdor LLP, acting on behalf of the woman, said in a statement to PA: “We applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks.”
Source: Press Association