Country music star Garth Brooks took to the stage in Las Vegas Thursday night, hours after a makeup artist accused him of rape and sexual harassment in a new lawsuit.
Brooks’ sold-out show was part of his residency at The Colosseum at Caesars, which began in May 2023 and is set to run until early 2025.
Following the show, the 62-year-old country crooner shared a heartfelt message on Instagram alongside a photo of him performing for fans inside the packed venue.
“If there was ever a night that I really needed this, TONIGHT was that night!” he wrote. “Thank you for my life!!!!!”
In a lawsuit filed in California earlier in the day, a woman identified as Jane Roe said she worked as a hairstylist and makeup artist for the “Friends in Low Places” singer, starting in 2017. The alleged abuse, however, did not begin until two years later.
In 2019, Brooks and Roe flew to Los Angeles so that he could record a Grammy Award tribute performance for Sam Moore. She said she found it odd they were the only two people on the private jet to L.A. that day, and she was further troubled when she learned Brooks had only booked one hotel room with a single bed.
When they arrived, Roe said the country star started making sexual advances almost immediately, appearing at one point “in the doorway to the bedroom, completely naked” before raping her, according to the suit.
“She was helpless to move from his grip and terrified at what was happening to her,” the documents said.
“While he held her upside down, dangling by her ankles — all the blood rushed to her head, causing her to be dizzy and sick,” the suit continued. “While Brooks forcefully penetrated her, he said perverted things to Ms. Roe about his sexual prowess.”
Roe said she continued to work for Brooks after the alleged rape, but did so only because she was having financial issues and needed the work. In the months and years that followed, Roe said Brooks frequently detailed his sexual fantasies for her and often physically groped her. He also allegedly made “repeated remarks” about “having a threesome” with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and showed Roe his genitals.
The suit additionally outlines another incident from 2019, when Brooks allegedly walked out of the shower naked, “grabbed her hands and forced them” onto his genitals, while using sexually explicit and vulgar language. Roe said she’d been at his home for work at the time.
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Garth Brooks and wife Trisha Yearwood in Nashville in August. (Getty)
The Country Music Award winner has since hit back at the allegations against him, denying any wrongdoing.
“For the last two months, I have 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,” he said.
“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face,” Brooks continued. “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.”
According to the complaint, Brooks filed a preemptive legal action in Mississippi last month under the name John Doe, seeking to stop Roe from suing him. He accused her of attempted extortion, defamation and infliction of emotional distress. He added that her impending lawsuit would unfairly damage his reputation given it is rife with “false allegations.”
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