[ad_1]
Garth Brooks has named his sexual assault accuser and sued her for compensatory and punitive damages after alleging she tried to extort “millions” from him, Page Six can confirm.
The country singer, 62, filed the complaint on Tuesday with the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Northern Division, according to court documents obtained by Page Six Tuesday.
He named his accuser after attempting to keep their identities private with a previous court filing asking a judge to grant them a right to anonymity.
“When Jane Roe threatened to publish lies about him — intending to blackmail Plaintiff into paying her millions of dollars — Plaintiff filed this lawsuit to preserve his reputation, establish the truth, and put a stop to her scheme,” his original filing explained.
“For the sake of his family, and out of respect for Roe’s family as well, Plaintiff titled this action ‘John Doe
vs. Jane Roe.’”
Because his accuser allegedly leaked his name, Brooks decided to submit a secondary filing that included both of their names, per the legal documents submitted Tuesday.
In the filing, the “Friends in Low Places” hitmaker asked for “compensatory damages proximately caused by Defendant’s intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and false light invasion of privacy, including incidental and consequential damages” and “punitive damages in an amount sufficient to deter similar future behavior.”
However, Brooks said the monetary damages “cannot adequately compensate” for the injuries to his reputation.
“Defendant will suffer no hardship from an injunction of her wrongful conduct, while Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if no injunction is issued,” the docs stated.
Brooks’ new filing also alleged his accuser sent him a letter on July 17 in which she “threatened” to “publicly file” over the claims against him unless he agreed to pay her “millions of dollars not to file the suit.”
In an alleged second letter from August 23, the accuser wrote that she would “refrain from publicly filing her false and defamatory lawsuit against Plaintiff in exchange for a multi-million dollar payment.”
Brooks claimed in his submission that the “allegations are not true” and asked for “a declaratory judgment that Defendant’s allegations against him of sexual misconduct are untrue.”
He also confirmed the accuser worked for him for about 15 years as an independent contractor before she relocated to Mississippi in 2020.
He alleged she fell into financial hardship, which is when she requested “financial assistance.”
“Plaintiff complied out of loyalty, friendship, and a desire to improve Defendant’s condition,” his filing reads.
“But Defendant’s demands for financial assistance only increased, with Defendant ultimately asking Plaintiff for salaried employment and medical benefits.”
The accuser’s lawyers, Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen and Hayley Baker, slammed Brooks in a response to his latest filing.
“Garth Brooks just revealed his true self. Out of spite and to punish, he publicly named a rape victim,” they said in a statement to Page Six Tuesday night.
“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.”
Page Six reached out to Brooks’ lawyer and rep for comment in response.
His filing comes after he claimed to Page Six via his rep that for two months he had 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.”
“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face,” he said in the statement shared last week. “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.”
In the accuser’s Oct. 3 filing, she claimed Brooks raped her during a work trip to Los Angeles in 2019 and acted inappropriately on multiple occasions.
The filing accused him of exposing his genitals to the accuser — who worked as his hairstylist at the time — regularly changing his clothing in front of her, expressing his sexual fantasies with her and sending her sexually explicit text messages.
She also accused him of making “repeated remarks” about “having a threesome” with his longtime wife, Trisha Yearwood. Brooks has denied the allegations.
Yearwood, 60, has not publicly commented on the accusations. Her rep did not immediately respond to Page Six’s original request for comment.
[ad_2]
Source link
