Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter is being sued for sexual battery over the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl during the boy band’s 2001 tour. As per court documents obtained by TMZ, Shannon Ruth claims she was invited to Carter’s tour bus after a concert in Tacoma, Washington. There, she said she was assaulted by Carter.
- The details of the case sound harrowing but all too common. According to Ruth, who has cerebral palsy and autism, Carter offered her a drink. While she asked for apple juice, he gave her a “red-colored drink” he claimed was cranberry juice. Carter then allegedly told her it was “VIP juice,” which led Ruth to say she believes it contained alcohol.
- Ruth said she was a virgin before the rape by Nick Carter. She also claims she got HPV from him and is seeking damages for the experience.
- Nick Carter vehemently denies the accusations. His lawyer, Michael Holtz, issued a statement to TMZ in which he insisted that Ruth’s story is false. “This claim about an incident that supposedly took place more than 20 years ago is not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue,” Holtz said. “Unfortunately, for several years now, Ms. Ruth has been manipulated into making false allegations about Nick – and those allegations have changed repeatedly and materially over time. No one should be fooled by a press stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer – there is nothing to this claim whatsoever, which we have no doubt the courts will quickly realize.”
- This isn’t the first time Carter has been charged with rape. Former Dream singer Melissa Schuman previously accused him in 2017 of assaulting her in 2002, when she was 18 and he was 22. Carter was never officially charged and the case never went to court. However, Schuman did detail the alleged encounter in an extremely graphic blog post at the time.
Featured image credit: Glenn Francis/CC-BY-SA 4.0
