Garth Brooks.
Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesGarth Brooks broke his silence after being accused of sexual harassment and assault.
“For the past two months, I have been suffering from threats, lies, and sad stories about what my future will be like if I don’t write a multi-million dollar check. “It was like a loaded gun was shoved in my face,” Brooks, 62, said Thursday, October 3, in a statement to Us Weekly.
“Hush money, no matter how big or small, it’s still money for peace. “In my mind, that means I’m condoning behavior that I can’t do – bad things that no one should do to another,” he continued. “We filed a case against this person about a month ago to speak out against fraud and defamation. We entered it anonymously because of the families on both sides.”
“I want to play music tonight,” he added. “I want to continue our good works going forward. My heart is broken by these wonderful things that are being talked about now. I trust the system, I’m not honest, and I’m not the man they painted me as.”
Brooks was named Thursday, October 3, in a complaint obtained by CNN, in which an unidentified woman said the country singer raped her in 2019 while working for her as a hairdresser.
In the lawsuit, the hairdresser (identified as Jane Roe) alleges that she began working for Brooks in 2017 after she regularly carried his wife’s glamour, Trisha Yearwood. Roe also said Brooks sent her graphic sex messages, repeatedly exposed her private parts in front of her and made “repeated comments” about having “threesomes” with Yearwood, 60. (Brooks and Yearwood have been married since 2005 following a split theirs.)
Before Roe’s trial, Brooks filed an anonymous complaint to try to prevent him from repeating the allegations and vehemently denied his account.
“The defendant’s allegations are untrue,” Brooks’ filing read, per CNN. “The defendant is well aware, however, of the great, irreparable damage such false allegations can do to the plaintiff’s well-earned reputation as a decent and caring person, as well as the inevitable damage to his family and the irreparable damage to his career and livelihood. would be the result if he accepted his threat to ‘make public’ his false accusation.”
Roe’s attorneys, meanwhile, told CNN that Brooks is trying to “silence” Roe in an “act of desperation.”
“We are confident that Brooks will answer for his actions,” the lawyers Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen again Hayley Baker said in their store statement. “We applaud the courage of our client to move forward with his complaint about Garth Brooks. The complaint filed today shows that abusers exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood and the rap and rock and roll industries, but also in the world of country music.”
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Yearwood, for her part, did not comment on the Brooks scandal. A few days before Roe’s case made headlines, Yearwood posted a photo on Instagram of the couple performing in Las Vegas late last month.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
Roy Rochlin/WireImageLast year, Brooks said Us Weekly that he often “depended” on Yearwood.
“I feel like nothing because I can’t do anything without him,” Brooks said. Us in August 2023, months before they open their Nashville joint bar. “I can’t do anything with him and I can’t do anything without him. It’s a blessing and a curse that you feel free and independent when he’s around and so dependent when he’s not … I don’t think he feels this way at all, but I know I do.”
Before marrying Yearwood, the Grammy winner was married to his first wife Sandy Mahle between 1986 and 2001. Three years into their marriage, Brooks admitted to cheating on Mahl, with whom he shared three daughters. They eventually reconciled before splitting for good in 2000.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
