Garth Brooks Returns to Las Vegas Stage Amid Sexual Assault Allegations

For Garth Brooks, the show will go on.

Hours after the country singer was accused of sexual assault and battery in a lawsuit filed by his former makeup artist and hairstylist, he took the stage in Las Vegas to continue his current tour.

"If there was ever a night that I really needed this, TONIGHT was that night," Brooks wrote on Instagram Oct. 3, alongside a photo of the audience at his residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. "Thank you for my life!!!!!"

Prior to the show, the "Friends in Low Places" singer—who has been married to wife Trisha Yearwood since 2005—broke his silence in a message denying the allegations and accused the unnamed woman of extortion. 

"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 in a statement to E! News Oct. 3. "It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face. Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money."

He added, "In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of—ugly acts no human should ever do to another." 

"I want to play music tonight. I want to continue our good deeds going forward," he continued. "It breaks my heart these wonderful things are in question now. I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be." 

The lawsuit obtained by E! News, which refers to Brooks' former employee as "Jane Roe" alleges that the singer knew she was "experiencing financial difficulties" and that he seized the "opportunity to subject a female employee to a side of Brooks that he conceals from the public."

Roe says the 62-year-old sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions in 2019, including that Brooks raped her during a work trip for that year's Grammy Awards after booking a room for them to share without her consent.

At the time, the lawsuit says, Roe felt "trapped in the room alone with Brooks, with no one to help and far away from Nashville" when Brooks "appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, completely naked."

She also says that Brooks—who shares daughters Taylor, 32, August, 30, and Allie, 28, with ex Sandra Mahl—exposed his genitals to her multiple times, disclosed sexual fantasies with her and sent sexually explicit text messages.

Roe—who started working for Yearwood in 1999 and began doing Brooks’ hair and makeup in 2017—stopped working for the couple around May 2021.

Although his message was his first public statement regarding the allegations, the singer previously denied the accusations and filed a motion to proceed with a legal case under “John Doe” to protect his identity.

“We filed suit against this person nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character," Brooks said in the statement to E! News. "We filed it anonymously for the sake of families on both sides."

According to documents obtained by CNN, the singer's filing says that Roe "is well aware of the substantial, irreparable damage such false allegations would do to Plaintiff's well-earned reputation as a decent and caring person" and if she filed her "fabricated lawsuit."

In response, Roe's attorneys shared that their client would move forward with her lawsuit.

"We applaud our client's courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks," the lawyers noted in a statement to NBC News. "The complaint filed today demonstrates that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood and in the rap and rock and roll industries but also in the world of country music." 

(E! News and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family.)