Garth Brooks’ Sexual Assault Accuser Wants Her Name to Stay Hidden

A woman who has accused Garth Brooks of sexual assault is refusing to concede defeat in her fight to remain anonymous.

The allegations, which Brooks vehemently denies, were raised by the star’s former hairstylist, identified only as Jane Roe in court filings. But the country star won a ruling in September that she must use her real name as the litigation moves ahead.

In a notice filed last month, Roe said she would ask a federal appeals court to reverse that ruling, saying that she was “appealing those portions of the order pertaining to her motions to maintain the confidentiality of her name and proceed using a pseudonym.”

A spokesperson for Brooks did not immediately return a request for comment on the case or the new appeal.

The legal battle kicked off last year, when Brooks filed a preemptive lawsuit under the name John Doe, claiming he was facing an “ongoing attempted extortion” by a woman falsely accusing him of sexual assault. Weeks later, Roe filed her own case in Los Angeles, accusing Brooks of assaulting her while she worked for him as a hairstylist.

Brooks has vehemently denied the allegations, saying in a statement that he had been threatened that the woman’s “lies” would be released to the public unless he wrote “a check for many millions of dollars.”

Since last year, much of the case has been shrouded in mystery because the entire court docket has been kept under seal, an unusual step in any federal lawsuit. The judge overseeing the case took that step after Brooks filed case documents last fall in which he publicly disclosed the accuser’s name.

That disclosure sparked outrage from Roe’s attorney, who vowed to re-hide her name and seek penalties against Brooks: “Out of spite and to punish, he publicly named a rape victim,” said her attorney, Douglas Wigdor. “With no legal justification, Brooks outed her because he thinks the laws don’t apply to him.”

In later court filings, attorneys for Brooks pushed back on that, arguing that the accuser “already agreed to use her name” — citing earlier court filings in which her attorneys argued Brooks must use his.

In September, Judge Henry T. Wingate denied Roe’s motion to remain under the pseudonym, though his reasoning is unclear because the ruling remains under seal, like the rest of the docket. Her team then filed a motion for an interlocutory, or immediate, appeal of that ruling.

Though the appellate case is underway, the accuser has not yet filed formal arguments. In a statement to Billboard, another of her attorneys, Jeanne M. Christensen, said they could not speak about the specifics of the appeal because of the judge’s sealing orders.

“The Mississippi action filed by Garth Brooks in a desperate effort to preemptively silence our client is currently under seal, and therefore, we cannot comment on the appeal,” said Christensen, a partner at Wigdor’s firm. “We continue to applaud our client’s courage in coming forward with her allegations of sexual assault against Brooks and are confident that he will be held accountable for his actions.”