Garth Brooks Pictured Holding Hands with Wife Trisha Yearwood 2 Days Before Being Sued for Claims of Sexual Assault

• Two days before Garth Brooks was hit with a sexual assault lawsuit, he appeared loved up with Trisha Yearwood on Instagram
• Brooks shared a snap of him and wife holding hands as they began work with Habitat for Humanity
• On Thursday, Oct. 3, a makeup artist accused the country star of sexual assault, which he preemptively denied in a complaint filed on Sept. 13

Two days prior to being hit with a sexual assault lawsuit, Garth Brooks shared a photo holding hands with Trisha Yearwood.

On Tuesday, Oct. 1, the country star, 62, shared a snap that featured the backs of him and his wife, 60 — to whom he’s been married since 2005 — walking toward a building site for Habitat for Humanity, where they were working to honor their friend Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday.

The pair were in St. Paul, Minnesota for the 2024 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Week Project, building the first 30 of what is supposed to be a 1,200-home community.

“We show up to do the work, but what we all leave with is SO much more,” Brooks wrote. “Kicking off the build for @habitatforhumanity Carter Work project 2024. As they say, Home is the key and love never quits! To everyone building with us, today was a GREAT Day 1!!! love, g & TY #carterworkproject.”

The “Friends in Low Places” artist reflected on what he learned about marriage from working with Jimmy and his late wife Rosalynn, who died last November.

“Just working with them, one of the greatest lessons you learned was that it’s OK to argue,” said Brooks. “They would argue about how to build or do something, but it just brought them closer. So my favorite thing about getting to be Ms. Yearwood’s partner is the good times, but also going through the bad times together because that makes you one… we have a love that’s going to last beyond this lifetime. I found her in the last life. I’ll find her in the next one.”

On Oct. 3, Brooks was sued by a makeup artist alleging sexual assault, in a complaint filed in the Superior Court of the State of California – County of Los Angeles and obtained by PEOPLE. In a statement obtained by PEOPLE Thursday night, Brooks spoke out about the allegations and said he “did not fear the truth.”

“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. It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face,” he said. “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.”

 The country star continued, “We filed suit against this person nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character. We filed it anonymously for the sake of families on both sides. I want to play music tonight. I want to continue our good deeds going forward. 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.”

Following Brooks speaking out, attorney Douglas H. Wigdor representing the woman — who filed as Jane Roe — said in a statement: “We are very confident in our case and over time the public will see his true character rather than his highly curated persona.”

The accuser Roe claims the inappropriate behavior began in 2019 when she was at the “Much Too Young” singer’s home for a styling appointment and found him coming out of the shower naked with an erection and forced her to touch his penis while requesting that she perform sex acts. Later in 2019, the woman claims that she was physically dominated and raped by Brooks while employed for an event.

While Ms. Roe was working for him, she claims she experienced Brooks “regularly changing his clothing” in front of her and “often purposefully” exposing his genitals and buttocks, openly talking about sexual subjects in front of her, telling her his “sexual fantasies” and receiving “sexually explicit text messages” from him.

Ms. Roe is seeking monetary and/or compensatory damages and punitive damages/exemplary damages.

“We applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks,” said Roe’s attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen and Hayley Baker (HB Advocates PLLC) in a statement. “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.”

They added: “We are confident that Brooks will be held accountable for his actions and his efforts to silence our client through the filing of a preemptive complaint in Mississippi was nothing other than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation. We encourage others who may have been victimized to contact us as no survivor should suffer in silence.”

The complaint further asserts that Brooks filed a preemptive lawsuit against Roe, denying Roe’s claims and accusing her of defaming Brooks. 

According to the complaint filed on Sept. 13 in federal court in Mississippi and obtained by PEOPLE, Brooks denied the allegations as “John Doe.”

In it, Brooks claimed that he had a 15-year working relationship with Roe as an independent contractor before she relocated from Tennessee to Mississippi in 2020. He alleged that when he could not agree to Roe’s “demands for salaried employment and medical benefits, she responded with false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct.”

The “That Summer” artist claimed that he and his colleagues received a “confidential demand letter” from Roe’s attorneys on July 17 that included allegations of “sexual grooming, creation of a sexually hostile work environment, unwanted sexual touching and sexual assault.” Roe also claimed that Brooks “planned to hire someone to murder her.”

Brooks is seeking a declaratory judgment that Roe’s allegations against him of sexual misconduct are false, compensatory damages, punitive damages and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.