After some legal wrangling, a woman who has accused country superstar Garth Brooks of sexual assault scored a legal victory.
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A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit vacated a Mississippi court's decision denying the woman's request to use a pseudonym in a lawsuit Brooks filed against her, country outlet Whiskey Riff reports.
According to Whiskey Riff, the dispute involves two lawsuits: a California suit in which Brooks's former hairdresser accuses him of rape and sexual assault, and a Mississippi suit Brooks filed 20 days earlier, denying her claims and calling them a "shakedown." Brooks filed under the pseudonyms "John Doe" and "Jane Roe." The woman named him in her California complaint but kept her own identity private.
After Brooks was named in court filings, he reportedly amended his Mississippi complaint to name both parties, arguing his accuser had given up her right to anonymity by sharing identifying details in the California case. She asked the Mississippi judge to sanction him and let her continue filing as "Jane Roe."
However, back in September 2025, Judge Henry Wingate denied the woman's motion to keep using the pseudonym, as well as her request for sanctions against Brooks. The ruling would have allowed Brooks to continue identifying his accuser in court filings.
Fifth Circuit Orders New Review of Garth Brooks Accuser's Anonymity Request
The woman filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Whiskey Riff obtained documents detailing the court's decision. In the documents, the court writes that it agrees "with some of Roe's arguments."
"A defendant is no less deserving of pseudonymity than a plaintiff simply by virtue of her being haled into court first," the court goes on to write. "There is no doubt that requiring alleged rape and sexual assault victims to proceed under their real identities would require them to disclose information of the utmost intimacy."
Meanwhile, the court pushed back against Garth Brooks' legal team's claims that the woman's identity had already been outed via previous legal filings and the internet at large.
"True, publicly available information cannot be obscured by courts," the court wrote. "However, that internet sleuths might speculate that Roe is a particular person because her California complaint lines up with [her] public profile is not the same as a public broadcasting of Roe's certain identity."
The court also addressed inadvertent disclosures of Brooks' accuser's identity in her own court filings.
"The disclosures were unintentional, were made in portions of larger filings, & Roe took steps to correct the errors once becoming aware of them, resulting in the sealing and refiling of the documents," the court wrote.
So now, the issue of whether the country singer's accuser can remain anonymous returns to the Mississippi court for reconsideration. The appeals court did not definitively grant her anonymity. Whiskey Riff's Aaron Ryan speculates that going forward, it seems likely the accuser will remain unidentified as Jane Roe, and that the legal proceedings could go forward soon.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
