Former Dream member Melissa Schuman has filed a lawsuit against Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter for alleged sexual assault and battery. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Schuman and her legal team filed the civil suit on Tuesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, with Schuman alleging that Carter used his status and platform as an “international multiplatinum recording pop star” to “groom, manipulate, exploit, and sexually assault” her.
This is the second lawsuit filed against Carter in the last six months. Previously, Shannon "Shay" Ruth had also accused him of assaulting her on the Backstreet Boys' tour bus during the band's 2001 Black & Blue tour back when she was 17. The report further notes that Schuman alleges Carter assaulted her at his Santa Monica apartment in 2003. The two were co-stars back then in the teen horror film The Hollow.
Citing the lawsuit, THR reported that “while filming, Carter invited her over to his apartment, with the duo joined by a male friend of the singer and a female friend of her own. Carter then allegedly gave Schuman alcohol and put a drug “like flunitrazepam” into her drink before taking her through various rooms in the apartment, including a bathroom and multiple bedrooms.”
“There he allegedly forced himself on her and performed sexual acts, including vaginal penetration, without her consent, in addition to forcing her to perform acts on him under fear of physical harm,” the report added. Carter’s attorney, Liane K. Wakayama, said in a statement that Schuman “has been peddling this tale for many years, but her allegation was false when she first made it back in 2017 — and it still is.”
“But this PR stunt won’t shake Nick from his determination to hold Ms. Schuman and her co-conspirators to account for the immeasurable pain and suffering their extortionate conduct has caused,” Wakayama added in the statement. Meanwhile, in a statement provided to The Times, Schuman said, “I have faced extraordinary backlash for standing up for myself; I am not the first, however my intention is that I am the last.”
“It’s time that powerful figures in the music industry get the message that they can no longer afford to enable and protect sexual predators,” she added. “I’m fighting to make the music industry a safer place to work and perform.”
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