Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Garth Brooks Fires Back At Rape Accuser: 'Shakedown'

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Lots happened in the last two weeks. Let's address the elephant in the room. Garth Brooks is firing back after his former makeup artist sues him, accusing him of a violent sexual assault. I'll tell you the very latest on the suit, what Brooks and his

Starting point is 00:00:25 wife are saying, and why this fight is getting nasty. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Country music star Garth Brooks is not backing down after his former makeup artist and hairstylist filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault and battery. It hasn't even been a week since this suit was filed in California. And let me tell you, it's getting ugly, really, really ugly. Brooks denied the allegations after the suit was filed last week. And now lawyers for his accuser say he has outed her in court documents and they are livid. The woman filed the lawsuit in California using the pseudonym Jane Roe, so she wouldn't be identified.

Starting point is 00:01:10 But her lawyers say that Brooks has revealed her identity in federal court documents that are part of a lawsuit that he filed last month trying to stop her from filing suit. So there's a lot to unpack here, a lot of new details, including Garth Brooks talking about the lawsuit on a live stream on Facebook. I'll play that for you here in a little bit. And I'll tell you how Brooks's wife, fellow country singer, Trisha Yearwood, and Brooks's daughters are reportedly responding to these claims. Garth Brooks, of course, is one of country music's biggest stars and he has or had a reputation as a really good guy. So these allegations have stunned the country music industry in Nashville and Brooks' fans. Brooks even tried to stop this suit, as I mentioned, from being filed by filing his own lawsuit last month.

Starting point is 00:01:52 We're going to dig into that in a little bit. But first, a quick recap of Jane Roe's lawsuit. The suit was filed under the name Jane Roe, but we know she started working for Trisha Yearwood in 1999. Jane Rose lawsuit claims she started working for Brooks around 2017, and she claims that he made lewd and crude comments to her about wanting her to perform oral sex at his home and appeared naked in front of her at his home. She then claims that Brooks raped her in a hotel suite on a trip to Los Angeles for the Grammys in 2019. The suit claims, tragically, her worst fears came true when seconds later he was towering over her, his six foot and almost 300 pound frame, ready to pounce on Ms. Rowe, who was less than five feet and 100 pounds.

Starting point is 00:02:38 As she began to panic, he grabbed her hands and pulled her into the next room and onto the bed where she could not escape his physical domination. Brooks's rape of Ms. Rowe was painful and traumatic, having no regard for her well-being and intent on his own sexual gratification at the expense of Ms. Rowe's physical, mental, and emotional trauma. At some point during the nightmare, Brooks even held her small body upside down by her feet and penetrated her. Jane Rose's suit says she went on to do Brooks's makeup and hair for the Grammys, but later went to the OBGYN for injuries that she suffered after that assault. Now, the night that this suit was filed, Garth Brooks performed at his residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He posted that night on Instagram, if there was ever a night that I really needed this, tonight was the night. Thank you for my life. Signed G. Brooks denied the allegations in a statement saying in part,

Starting point is 00:03:34 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. It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face. The statement 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. And Monday night, he actually spoke briefly about this on Facebook Live. Take a look. Lots happened in the last two weeks. Let's address the elephant in the room, shall we?

Starting point is 00:04:13 This thing is on. It's going to happen. And people are telling me it could be up to two years. Okay. So my suggestion is we all take a deep breath. We all just kind of settle in. And let's hold hands and take the trip together. OK, because it is something that you cannot talk about.

Starting point is 00:04:31 It's not that's all we can say about it. So for those who joined us tonight to hear about that, I bid you a wonderful rest of your night. That's the last we can say about it. So Brooks didn't say much there. He said he couldn't. But he certainly made it sound like he's in this for the long haul. In fact, he tried to stop this lawsuit from being filed in the first place when he filed a complaint in federal court in Mississippi last month. That suit stated, specifically on July 17th, 2024, an attorney acting at defendant's direction sent plaintiff and others with whom plaintiff professionally works an ostensibly confidential demand letter alleging a litany of sexual misconduct by plaintiff ranging from allegations of sexual grooming, creation of a sexually hostile work environment, unwanted sexual touching and sexual assault. Defendant also alleged a belief that plaintiff planned to hire someone to murder her.

Starting point is 00:05:29 The July 17th demand letter was the first time plaintiff learned of these allegations, none of which has any basis in fact. Now, the lawsuit filed by Jane Roe did not include this alleged murder plot. And now the accuser's name has been revealed in an amended complaint filed by Brooks in federal court. Brooks explained in a motion why he was doing this. Plaintiff is the victim of a shakedown 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. For the sake of his family and out of respect for Roe's family as well, plaintiff titled this action,

Starting point is 00:06:08 John Doe versus Jane Roe. I want to tell you about a great app and a sponsor of Crime Fix. It's called Upside. Upside is a free app that gives you cash back on things like food and gas. This is not a confusing rewards program. Upside gives you real money back

Starting point is 00:06:23 that goes straight into your bank account. Just download the Upside app, click on it and claim an offer and pay with your debit or credit card as usual. Upside works at places like Shell, Exxon, 7-Eleven, KFC, Taco Bell, even Chipotle. To find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download Upside or scan the QR code on your screen and use our promo code CRIMEFIX and get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CRIMEFIX for extra cash back. So Brooks is basically saying he wanted to resolve this in federal court with both parties remaining anonymous. And you can tell he's furious that Jane Roe filed her lawsuit in California, naming him as the defendant

Starting point is 00:07:05 after he had asked the federal court to allow him to file his complaint using pseudonyms. While plaintiff's motion to proceed under a pseudonym was pending and before it was even fully briefed, Roe's counsel, Douglas Wigdor, revealed to CNN that plaintiff was world-famous musician and humanitarian Garth Brooks. CNN published Roe's counsel's on-the-record quote on October 3rd, 2024, two days after Roe represented to this court, that she purportedly respects this court's authority to decide whether Mr. Doe can proceed under a pseudonym. Her unilateral decision to usurp that authority shows otherwise. Brooks said that Jane Roe was once a trusted

Starting point is 00:07:46 member of his team, but then she devised a malicious scheme to blackmail him for millions of dollars after he rejected her request for salaried employment and medical benefits. Now the attorneys for the accuser are firing back in a statement of their own. They're furious. Attorneys for Wigder LLP wrote, Garth Brooks just revealed his true self out of spite and to punish. He publicly named a rape victim 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. Now you might be wondering what does Brooks's wife, Tricia Yearwood, think about this? They knew this was coming, of course. On Tuesday, Trisha Yearwood posted

Starting point is 00:08:29 on Instagram for the first time since the suit was filed. It shows a post of her with her husband on stage posting, love one another, hashtag Vegas. Before that, someone close to Trisha Yearwood told Us Weekly exclusively that Trisha Yearwood and Brooks' three daughters believe his denials of the allegations. The story quoted a source as telling the site, Garth is known to be a very kind and nice man, so these allegations are very shocking. Everyone around him, including Trisha and his daughters, believe him to be telling the truth. Many around him think this is out of character and something he would never do. Everyone around him is shocked. Erin Ehrlich Caro is a trial attorney. I want to bring her in to talk about this.

Starting point is 00:09:09 Erin, there's a lot to unpack here. Let's start, first of all, with the newest news, and that is the fact that the accuser in this case, her attorneys are hopping mad because they say that Garth Brooks has outed her and identified her in court documents related to the federal lawsuit he filed in Mississippi in September. Your thoughts on that? It seems kind of like possibly playing dirty pool. You know, it's troubling because they do have the right to proceed with anonymity as a sexual assault victim. However, we are seeing that Garth Brooks' attorneys are sort of charting some new territory by making this preemptive strike in federal court and putting the victim or the alleged victim on the defense.

Starting point is 00:10:01 And now because they take the position, at least in their papers, that they only did this because they were outed. And they say that the accuser's attorneys were the ones who went out into the public arena, specifically on CNN, and disclosed that the person that was the subject of their filing was Garth Brooks, instead of allowing the federal court in Mississippi to render a decision on the motion that had already been pending before it, so that the parties could, so that Garth Brooks and the victim could proceed anonymously in this proceeding. How unusual is it for somebody to file a complaint in federal court the way that Garth Brooks did? Because he's

Starting point is 00:10:46 saying, look, I got a demand letter. I tried to go to federal court in Mississippi where she lives to head this off. I filed it anonymously under John Doe and Jane Roe to try to deal with this privately. And then as you said, he's saying, you outed me. You went to court and filed it with my name all over it. But how unusual was that for him to go to court to preemptively try to head this off? I mean, I don't know if I've ever seen such a thing in all my years covering these cases. And this is, you know, it really it then sort of raises this interesting question about the public policy or who are we protecting here? Who do we need to protect here? This is, I would agree, somewhat of a novel approach, a novel strategy to put an alleged victim on the defense. And of course, it seemed that his intention was for this to proceed without anyone knowing, to not make this a matter of media attention. But he must have known that there might be some media attention eventually drawn to this. And so he must have

Starting point is 00:12:01 known that there would eventually be this need to have this PR perception that he's the one that's victimized, not her. And it's an interesting approach because the question is, does the public policy protect him? And does this type of strategy have a chilling effect on actual legitimate victims? And I'm not weighing in on the guilt of Garth Brooks yet. We still, there's a lot that remains to be seen, but let's assume for the conversation that he's innocent. Even if that were true, do we want to have this blueprint for attorneys

Starting point is 00:12:38 protecting high powered and high profile individual so that they can try to cut off the legs of a legitimate victim. And, you know, it's interesting. It's a little troubling. But at the same time, I think he feels like he's been backed into a corner. It almost seems to me like a legal declaration of war. I mean, they're already at war. I mean, this is a very, I mean, the allegations in this suit are terrible. You know, what Jane Roe is alleging, I mean, and Garth Brooks is somebody who kind of has this, I won't call it a squeaky clean image, but he certainly has this kind of

Starting point is 00:13:18 like, hey, I'm a country boy. You know, I'm your buddy, kind of every man, country star who gets up on stage, he plays his guitars, wife goes on tour with them. So he's certainly concerned. And he said as much in his suit about his public image. And he's denied these allegations. But on the other hand, she's saying I have audio recordings, I have text messages to back up my claims. She's even claiming that she went to the OBGYN after this alleged assault in May of 2019 because she claimed she suffered injuries. So there's going to be a lot to sort out here, but this seems like intense scorched earth warfare here, legally speaking. It is. And you sort of wonder if there was an attempt. And, you know, I can imagine Garth Brooks wasn't thrilled at the demand letter he received in July, which, you know, obviously we haven't seen it.

Starting point is 00:14:12 But it's based on the filings. It seems that it was, you know, here's what these types of cases where the awards are, multimillion dollar awards, you know, pay up or we're going to file this suit. But someone with like our folks with such deep pockets, it's almost interesting that he didn't make the choice to just pay her to go away, to take the risk that this would actually play out in the court of public opinion, which I think sometimes is more harmful than the court of law. It's interesting that he made that choice, particularly when he's built such a squeaky clean image, as you said, and he's arguably worked hard to build his career and to protect his family. But he must feel he has a case to make if he's going to take this position. It is interesting because he probably could have very easily paid her off. And, you know, he went on his Facebook live live stream the other night

Starting point is 00:15:12 and said, you know, very calmly, look, you know, I'm going to address the elephant in the room. You know, it's on, we're doing this. I mean, he's not backing down and he's making it very clear that he's going to take this to the end. At least that's the message he's sending to his fans. And he sent that message, legally speaking, because he didn't settle this. And what's even more fascinating is that he knows his family is being implicated here. There's allegations littered throughout the pleadings that his wife was not saying that she was aiding and abetting the conduct, but there's allegations in the complaint that she at least knew about some of the suggestive comments that were being made and bore witness to it. This implicates her

Starting point is 00:15:55 potentially as a witness in this proceeding. It's interesting he would choose to take that risk. He, again, he must feel he has some sort of a basis to contest this. And, you know, well, a lot remains to be seen as to what evidence the plaintiff can actually produce here. Or the victim. Let's talk about Tricia Yearwood, because as you mentioned, she is mentioned throughout the complaint. I mean, this woman, the makeup artist worked for her at first. There are claims that Garth Brooks was saying things about having a threesome with the makeup artist and Trisha Yearwood within earshot of Trisha Yearwood that Garth Brooks had apparently

Starting point is 00:16:38 said to Trisha Yearwood, oh, she saw my, you know, private parts or whatever. She saw me naked from the waist down. And he's like, you know, you're, you know, you, I know Tricia pretty well, you know, that was one of the quotes that, you know, I think you're overreacting that kind of thing. So, and now we have this Us Weekly report, an exclusive report quoting a source, which in my experience, that means PR people have given them that story that she is, you know, they find he, Trisha Yearwood and his daughters find this shocking, the allegations, but that they believe him. So there's a PR offensive going on here as well. Garth Brooks is, you know, a multi multi multi hundreds of millions of millionaire who can afford to wage

Starting point is 00:17:26 a fierce legal and PR battle. So your take on, on those comments, because we haven't heard squat from Tricia Yearwood. We haven't seen anything from her. She hasn't put anything out, but we are of course seeing little dribbles in the media. Well, that's unsurprising. It's unsurprising that we've heard very little from her at this point. I would expect we're probably not going to hear much from her because of her potential to be a fact witness in this litigation. I don't expect I'm sure her lawyers are lawyers are advising her to stay quiet, to not make any comments. It just opens her up to more claims for discovery, more claims for inquiry as a witness. She's not going to say much. The fact that she's standing by him, though, I think you're right that there is a PR move here to try to suggest to the public that she's standing by him. And despite

Starting point is 00:18:20 what's being alleged about what she knew, the insinuation is that that may not be true. And that much still needs to be established before we can get to the conclusion of guilt. So Erin, as we move forward, as we move forward with this lawsuit, I mean, yikes. I mean, when I saw what was going on with her name being revealed in the court documents, is this just going to get hotter and nastier as we move forward? I think the gloves have come off. It's apparent just from reading through the pleadings and reading through the motions that are being filed in the federal case in Mississippi, that Garth Brooks' attorneys

Starting point is 00:19:02 are pretty mad. They're hopping mad. He must be hopping mad because he was hoping to have this at least have the court there make a decision before this all began in this media hoopla that we now have sort of seen coming to light. And, you know, I think it's going to get a bit nasty. But these types of cases. Hopefully, though, everyone can proceed with dignity in these courts and we treat each other with respect and we don't let this become a circus. Yeah, most certainly. Erin, thank you so much for coming on.

Starting point is 00:19:58 Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Garth Brooks Fires Back At Rape Accuser: 'Shakedown'

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Garth Brooks Fires Back At Rape Accuser: 'Shakedown'

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