Garth Brooks launched a preemptive strike against his makeup artist rape accuser claiming she was extorting him for cash
Garth Brooks filed a preventive lawsuit against his sexual abuse accuser, claiming he was the victim, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The country music star, 62, claimed she was an extortionist who threatened to ruin his reputation if she didn’t get a multi-million dollar payday, according to his lawsuit.
Brooks’ lawsuit, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, was filed anonymously in federal court in Mississippi last month after she received a “letter of application” from her attorney.
He was aware at the time that his former makeup artist, known only as Jane Roe, was preparing to file a civil claim of her own in California.
Brooks’ complaint puts a very different spin on the events alleged in Thursday’s filing, which accused him of sexual assault, sexual battery and gender violence.
Garth Brooks, 62, has been sued by a makeup artist who worked for his wife of nearly two decades, Trisha Yearwood, 60; Brooks and Yearwood are pictured in 2023
Roe maintained that she was exposed to a sexually hostile work environment and was ultimately raped by Brooks during a business trip to Los Angeles in 2019.
But the singer denied such actions, claiming her complaint was a money grab motivated by financial problems she wanted him to resolve.
Instead of running from an abusive employer, Brooks claimed Roe only sued him after he refused to give her a gainful position with medical benefits.
According to Brooks, she did this after numerous threats of lawsuit unless he paid her “millions of dollars not to file the lawsuit.”
DailyMail.com has determined that Brooks is the person behind the Mississippi lawsuit after Roe’s lawyers revealed that the megastar had filed a preemptive lawsuit in the state.
Roe worked for Brooks as an independent contractor for about 15 years before moving from Tennessee to Mississippi in May 2020.
Brooks, filed as “John Doe,” alleged: “Shortly after moving to Mississippi, Defendant apparently experienced financial difficulties and asked Plaintiff for financial assistance.
“Plaintiff complied out of loyalty, friendship and a desire to improve Defendant’s condition.
“But Defendant’s demands for financial assistance only increased, with Defendant ultimately asking Plaintiff for gainful employment and medical benefits.”
Brooks is pictured at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards, with an Icon Award
Brooks identified himself as “John Doe” and argued his need for anonymity in the lawsuit, hoping the case would never become public if the woman did not follow through.
Brooks refused and, he alleged, “she responded with false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct that she said occurred years ago.”
An attorney acting on Roe’s behalf sent Brooks a “letter of demand” on July 17 alleging a litany of sexual misconduct… ranging from allegations of sexual ‘grooming’, creating a sexually hostile work environment, unwanted sexual touching and sexual assault.”
In his lawsuit, Brooks alleged that Roe also asserted her belief that he “intended to hire someone to kill her.” This claim was not included in Roe’s own lawsuit.
Brooks claimed the demand letter was the first time he had heard of any of the allegations against him.
He stated that the letter threatened to “publicly file a civil complaint” – the draft of which was attached – unless he “agreed to pay… millions of dollars.”
“The letter referenced several celebrity sexual misconduct lawsuits with multi-million dollar jury awards,” his lawsuit alleged.
In a follow-up letter dated August 23, 2024, Roe again “offered to refrain from publicly filing her false and defamatory lawsuit… in exchange for a multi-million dollar payment.”
Brooks claimed, “She threatened that if [Brooks] If he were to fail to meet this requirement, he would face multi-million dollar exposure based on [his] net worth.’
Brooks and Yearwood are pictured at a Grammy tribute to Paul Simon at the Hollywood Pantages Theater in April 2022
The top solo artist in Recording Industry Association of America history, Friends in Low Places, who sold nearly 150 million albums, has an estimated net worth between $300 million and $350 million.
He has at times been the highest paid celebrity in the world. Between June 2017 and June 2018, he earned $45 million. During the same period in 2019 – the year Roe accuses him of raping her – he earned $25 million.
Brooks’ wife, country singer, Trisha Yearwood’s own wealth puts their net worth as a couple at approximately $400 million.
Yearwood, 60, and Brooks have been married for 21 years and have homes in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as Nashville, Tennessee, and Malibu, California.
Brooks broke his silence Thursday night, hours after issuing a strong legal denial of rape and battery allegations against the makeup artist he has known for more than two decades.
Brooks shared an update on Instagram after his show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, writing to fans that he “really needed this.”
He uploaded a photo of the huge crowd that turned out to be cheering him on and wrote: ‘If there was ever a night where I really needed this, TONIGHT was that night! Thank you for my life!!!!love, g.”
The plaintiff was originally hired to do hair and makeup for Yearwood, and Brooks eventually brought her in to do that for him, she claims; Brooks and Yearwood pictured last month
In turn, Roe’s legal team accused Brooks of trying to “game” the legal system with last month’s preemptive strike.
“With a draft of Ms. Roe’s California sexual assault complaint in hand, Mr. Doe rushed to this courthouse in an apparent attempt to further control and bully his sexual assault victim,” their response to his federally filed suit, seen by DailyMail.com , read.
They claimed he did this while feigning interest in settlement talks to avoid the lawsuit they had yet to file.
In that lawsuit, new details of which DailyMail.com can reveal, Roe made multiple claims of sexual assault and sexual impropriety by Brooks.
She claimed he “took advantage” of the financial problems she shared with him in 2019 and “took the opportunity to [her] to a side of Brooks that he keeps hidden from the public’.
According to Roe, “that side believes he is entitled to sexual gratification when he wants it, and using a female employee to get it is fair game.”
Roe accused Brooks of once coming out of a shower naked, “with an erection” that he forced her to touch, grab her hand and tell her he fantasized about the moment and wanted her to perform a sex act with would do to him.
She claimed that things escalated in May 2019 when he asked her to travel with him to Los Angeles for a Grammy tribute to Sam Moore. She claimed he booked a one-bedroom hotel suite and refused to give her her own room.
Brooks will be honored by the Kennedy Center in 2021
In her suite, she claimed that she – less than five feet tall and weighing 100 pounds – was subjected to a brutal rape by Brooks, who, at 6 feet tall and weighing almost 300 pounds, could easily physically dominate her .
She also claimed he sent her explicit text messages and encouraged her to sext him; that he bragged about having “fucked multiple women in every corner of a hotel room,” “white, black, brown or whatever… on any surface.”
Brooks also repeatedly discussed having a threesome with Yearwood and Roe and repeatedly exposed himself to her and groped her body, including her breasts, the lawsuit alleged.
Remarkably, Roe believed Yearwood had ‘heard it’ [his suggestion of a threesome] on at least one occasion,” and that his wife was present at a particularly lewd conversation in which Brooks talked about inventing a shampoo bottle that could double as a dildo.
Roe claimed that the conversation made her so uncomfortable that she did not want to participate, which angered Brooks so much that he “banged his fists on the counter so hard in frustration that the items on the counter moved and he leaned over and spoke menacingly ‘. way to Mrs. Roe’.