Garth Brooks said he revealed the real name of the woman accusing him of rape because she refused to give him a pseudonym in her lawsuit.
“Defendant already agreed to use her name in this litigation. She also included so many identifying details in her California lawsuit that it eliminated any possibility of her remaining anonymous in this Mississippi case,” Brooks’ lawyers wrote in a legal memo released on Wednesday.
“Her sudden about-face — to now protest Plaintiff’s filing of an amended complaint identifying both parties — rings hollow,” they continued.
The memo added that the country singer originally filed his action as John Doe vs. Jane Roe on Sept. 13: “Mr. Brooks did so to protect both parties’ identities and to spare both parties’ families the repercussions of Ms. [Roe]s’ false allegations.”
Brooks’ legal team also argued that Ms. Roe “urged the Court that both parties to this case should proceed under their own names. She wrote that ‘no basis under Fifth Circuit law exists to grant Mr. Doe’s request to seal the record or redact publicly filed documents to conceal the identities of he and Ms. Roe.’”
In separate paperwork also filed on Wednesday, Brooks asked that Ms. Roe’s motion be “denied in its entirety.”
On Oct. 8, the woman’s attorneys filed a motion for emergency sealing or redactions and for sanctions in response to the legal complaint filed by Brooks that identified her. Roe’s legal team specifically referenced the “intentional and unlawful disclosure of a rape victim’s identity, without her consent” as the reason for their motion.
The motion also stated that Brooks “commenced this action improperly, for the purpose of thwarting Ms. Roe’s efforts to assert causes of action against him in California under California law for sexual violence, including inter alia sexual assault and rape.” The documents further assert that Brooks was given notice of Roe’s intent to file a lawsuit in California on Oct. 3 (Roe v. Brooks, No. 24 Civ.
25693) and that he “did nothing.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this story.
