‘Welp DOWN GOES GARTH BROOKS’: Sofa sleuths are now hell-bent on finding out whether or not Garth Brooks is the Diddy of country music

Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault. Please take care while reading.

On the heels of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex crimes indictment, country musician Garth Brooks is facing sexual assault allegations in a California lawsuit. After Brooks’ accusations were made public, some online have questioned whether Brooks might be “the Diddy of country music.”

According to The New York Times, Brooks’ accuser — who so far has not been named in the press — started working with Brooks’ wife, Trisha Yearwood, as a hair and makeup stylist around 1999 before picking up Brooks as a client in 2017. Among other allegations, she says about two years later, Brooks confronted her naked and forced her to touch his genitals. Then, according to the suit, Brooks brutally sexually assaulted her in a California hotel room. Though she kept working for Brooks and his wife in Tennessee, he allegedly sexually harassed her several more times on different occasions. By 2021, she was reportedly no longer working for Brooks and Yearwood and had moved to Mississippi.

The “Nashville Diddy?”

At this point, the Brooks allegations are alarmingly similar to Diddy’s early on, which began with a single civil suit filed against the hip-hop star in late 2023 but have now grown to a federal indictment and over 100 other civil suits accusing Diddy of similar crimes. Moreover, online rumors have been around for a while, calling Brooks a serial killer because of missing person cases that align with his touring schedule — rumors mainstream enough to be amplified by comedian and podcast host Tom Segura. (To be clear, Brooks has not been accused of murder.)

There’s also no evidence to suggest there will be further accusations against Brooks, but that hasn’t stopped online content creators from speculating that more could be coming. Poppi Star, who claims to live in Nashville, said people already consider Brooks “the Diddy of country music.” Meanwhile, a Roll of Tape noticed the same potential similarities in both legal situations, captioning her post, “The fact that Garth is being sued now sure is interesting timing. Almost like if there’s a whole house of cards that’s about to come crashing down.”

“Where’s there’s one, there’s more”

At the time of writing, there’s no publicly available information to suggest that Brooks will face further sexual assault allegations, or, in the words of content creator Bonnie Gooch, “where there’s one, there’s more.” According to The New York Times, men who commit sexual assault tend to start young, and some attack women once or twice, but no one knows for sure the percentage of men who go on to continue to rape and assault women later in life.

Meanwhile, sexual assault trauma specialist and researcher Jim Hopper, Ph.D., writes on his site that about two-thirds of college-age rapists assault women more than once. One difficulty in getting firm numbers on the topic, Hopper adds, is that to study how often men who have otherwise not been convicted of a crime rape more than one woman, men must answer honestly when they’re surveyed.

Garth Brooks’ response

Before the accusations were made public, Brooks also filed a suit in Tennessee against the anonymous woman, calling what she said he did “false and outrageous” and asking for his identity to be protected. In response, the woman’s lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor, drew another Diddy comparison when he said, “It seems as though Sean Combs and Garth Brooks are using the same public relations team by attacking legitimate victims. Over time, the public will see his true character rather than his highly curated persona.”

Brooks has denied the current allegations against him and characterized them as an extortion attempt. “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,” a Brooks statement said.

If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.