Nick Carter is being sued again for allegedly raping and assaulting a 17-year-old girl on a Backstreet Boys tour bus in 2001.
Carter is accused of raping Shannon “Shay” Ruth and three other women identified only as Jane Does in a civil lawsuit filed Thursday in Clark County, Nevada. Ruth is seeking monetary damages, both punitive and compensatory, as a result of the alleged rape.
“The last 21 years have been filled with pain, confusion, frustration, shame, and self-harm as a direct result of Nick Carter raping me,” Ruth, now 39, sobbed during a press conference on Thursday.
“Despite the fact that I am autistic and have cerebral palsy, I believe that nothing has had a greater impact on me,” she said. “My motivation for coming forward today and filing this lawsuit is to prevent Nick Carter from further assaulting teens and women.”
In a statement, Carter’s attorney, Michael Holtz, denied the charges.
“This claim about an incident that allegedly occurred more than 20 years ago is not only legally meritless, but also completely false.” Unfortunately, Ms. Ruth has been duped into making false allegations about Nick for several years, and those allegations have changed repeatedly and materially over time. No one should be misled by a publicity stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer – there is nothing to this claim, as we are confident the courts will quickly recognize.”
Ruth, according to attorney Mark Boskovich, went to a Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Washington, in February 2001. She met Carter in an autograph line after the show, and the singer invited her to the band’s tour bus.
“He gave her a funny-tasting beverage that he called ‘VIP juice,'” Boskovich said, adding that Ruth drank the beverage before Carter forced her to perform oral sex while crying in the bathroom. According to the attorney, Carter later took Ruth to a bed in the back of the bus and raped her despite her pleas for him to stop.
“Every time Shay said no and tried to get away from Carter, he’d become enraged and push her back down on that bed,” Boskovich continued.
Ruth promised to tell people what happened, but Carter allegedly grabbed and bruised her arm, called her an ableist slur, and told her no one would believe her, according to Boskovich. Carter is also accused of infecting Ruth and the three other women with HPV, according to the lawsuit.
Boskovich urged other victims or others with evidence against Carter to come forward, saying, “These women’s experiences are all extremely similar. They were all virgins when they were sexually assaulted by Carter, and they were all afflicted with HPV.”
Ruth declared, “No famous person is above the law.” “Carter stole my youth and innocence, but he can’t and won’t steal my power and my truth,” the speaker said.
The Backstreet Boys recently recorded “A Very Backstreet Holiday,” a one-hour Christmas special that was initially slated to premiere on December 14. The program will no longer air as scheduled, according to an ABC executive who was aware of the network’s plans but was not authorized to publicly disclose them.
Carter has already dealt with similar accusations. The Santa Monica Police Department announced in 2018 that it has opened an inquiry into allegations of sexual assault against the artist from 2003.
Actress-singer Melissa Schuman claimed Carter sexually abused her immediately after the two were cast in the 2004 TV drama The Hollow in a 2017 blog post titled, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.” He was 22 and she was 18.
Carter has previously refuted the charge and added that he thought their encounters were mutually consenting.
At the time, the singer released a statement in which she said, “I am startled and saddened by Ms. Schuman’s accusations. We went on to record a song and perform together, and I was always supportive of Melissa both emotionally and professionally. Melissa never stated to me while we were together or at any time subsequently that anything we did was not consensual.
Just over a month has passed since Carter’s younger brother, Aaron, was discovered dead in his California home at the age of 34. Nick Carter paid homage to his brother, against whom he had sought a restraining order in 2019.
Despite the difficulties in our relationship, he wrote, “my love for him has never ever waned. My heart has been broken today.”
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