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      Paula Abdul Accuses Nigel Lythgoe of Sexual Assault During ‘American Idol’

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      Ms. Abdul filed a lawsuit against Mr. Lythgoe, a producer of the reality show, that accuses him of assaulting her in an elevator.Paula Abdul filed a lawsuit on Friday against Nigel Lythgoe, a former longtime producer of “American Idol,” accusing him of sexually assaulting her when she was a judge on the reality show in the early 2000s.In the lawsuit, Ms. Abdul says that during one of the early seasons of “American Idol,” Mr. Lythgoe shoved her against the wall of a hotel elevator, grabbed her genitals and breasts and began “shoving his tongue down her throat.” Ms. Abdul said in the lawsuit that she tried to push Mr. Lythgoe away, and that when the elevator doors opened, she ran to her hotel room and called one of her representatives in tears.Mr. Lythgoe helped turn “American Idol” into a phenomenon in the United States in 2002 after developing an earlier iteration of the show in Britain. He was also a creator of “So You Think You Can Dance,” on which he appeared as a judge for 16 seasons.Representatives for Mr. Lythgoe did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.Both Mr. Lythgoe and Ms. Abdul, who rose to fame as a choreographer and pop star in the late 1980s, became fixtures of American reality television as judges with the power to turn promising singers and dancers into stars. Ms. Abdul spent eight seasons on “American Idol,” entertaining viewers with her gushing commentary and playful rivalry with her fellow judge Simon Cowell.After leaving “American Idol,” Ms. Abdul was a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance,” working alongside Mr. Lythgoe in 2015 and 2016. She says in the lawsuit that Mr. Lythgoe again made advances during this time, while she was at his home to discuss work.“Lythgoe forced himself on top of Abdul while she was seated on his couch and attempted to kiss her while proclaiming that the two would make an excellent ‘power couple,’” the lawsuit said. “Abdul pushed Lythgoe off of her, explaining that she was not interested in his advances, and immediately left Lythgoe’s home.”The lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, said Ms. Abdul did not speak publicly about the encounters because she feared retaliation from Mr. Lythgoe.Ms. Abdul is suing under a California law that allows people making sexual assault accusations to file claims outside the statute of limitations for a limited period of time.In her lawsuit, Ms. Abdul, 61, also accused Mr. Lythgoe, 74, of verbal harassment, saying that he called her at one point and told her they should celebrate because “it had been ‘seven years and the statute of limitations had run.’”Ms. Abdul also brought the lawsuit against production companies behind “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” accusing them of negligence. Representatives for the shows and the production companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.When Ms. Abdul left “American Idol” in 2009, there was speculation that her exit was the result of disagreements about pay disparities with the show’s male faces.In her lawsuit, Ms. Abdul says that as a judge on “American Idol,” she was “discriminated against in terms of compensation and benefits.” She describes her relationship with the show’s producers and other judges as “strained from the start,” saying that she was the target of “constant taunts” from Mr. Lythgoe and others involved in the show and that selective editing made her appear “inept.”Mr. Lythgoe was a largely behind-the-scenes figure with “American Idol,” leaving as an executive producer of the show about a decade ago, but he has been center stage on “So You Think You Can Dance,” turning himself into a performing arts impresario and advocate for dance education. He is scheduled to return as a judge in the spring. More

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      Jermaine Jackson Is Accused of Sexual Assault in Lawsuit

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      In a complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, Rita Barrett says the musician raped her at her home in 1988. Mr. Jackson has not yet responded.Jermaine Jackson, one of Michael Jackson’s older brothers and a founding member of the Jackson 5, was accused of sexual assault in a civil suit filed Wednesday in California.In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Rita Barrett accuses Mr. Jackson, 69, of sexual abuse, sexual battery, sexual assault, harassment and rape relating to an incident that she says happened at her Los Angeles home in 1988. In the court papers, Ms. Barrett says that Mr. Jackson forcefully entered her home and assaulted her, inflicting “severe emotional, physical and psychological injury, including humiliation, shame, and guilt, economic loss, economic capacity and permanent emotional distress.”The suit lists Mr. Jackson, Jermaine L. Jackson Music Productions and Work Records, a business Mr. Jackson founded, as defendants. Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment.Ms. Barrett’s court filing says she came into contact with Mr. Jackson through her role as a musician’s contractor and as a member of a union that represents musicians. The complaint says she also knew Mr. Jackson through Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, who had a personal and business relationship with Mr. Barrett’s husband. Mr. Gordy could not be reached for comment.In her suit, Ms. Barrett says that she told Mr. Gordy what happened the following day, but he “withheld and concealed the acts, further perpetuating the coverup and allowing Mr. Gordy, Defendant Jackson and others in the business relationship to continue to reap profits derived from Mr. Jackson’s work and reputation for years to come.”Ms. Barrett is requesting a jury trial.Michael Pellegrino, president of Artists Management Agency, which has represented Mr. Jackson since 2014, said the agency would be parting ways with the musician because of the suit.“We have a zero-tolerance policy concerning these matters,” Mr. Pellegrino wrote in an email to The Times on Friday. “We wish him well but we must feel comfortable about who we represent and unfortunately at this moment we must take in consideration our other clients who do not feel comfortable with the current allegations.”Jeff Anderson, a lawyer for Ms. Barrett, said that his client decided to file the suit after learning that California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act allows certain sexual abuse claims to be revived that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.“The first thing that she and we want by having brought this case is for it to be known that Jermaine Jackson committed a very serious crime,” Mr. Anderson added. More

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      Vin Diesel Is Accused of Sexually Assaulting a Former Assistant

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      The assistant filed a lawsuit in California, saying that the actor had groped her and forcibly kissed her in a hotel room during the filming of a “Fast & Furious” movie in 2010.A former assistant to Vin Diesel, one of Hollywood’s most bankable action stars, filed a sexual battery lawsuit against the actor on Thursday, saying that he groped her and pinned her against the wall of an Atlanta hotel room during the filming of the fifth “Fast & Furious” movie in 2010.In the lawsuit, the former assistant, Asta Jonasson, said the encounter took place less than two weeks after she was hired to work for Mr. Diesel. The actor grabbed her, groped her breasts and forcibly kissed her while she repeatedly said no, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Diesel pulled her dress up and moved to pull down her underwear, the lawsuit said, before Ms. Jonasson screamed and ran toward the bathroom.The complaint said Mr. Diesel then “pinned her against the wall with his body, and grabbed Ms. Jonasson’s hand and placed it on his erect penis.” When she again refused to engage, the lawsuit says, Mr. Diesel began masturbating while keeping her pinned to the wall.Representatives for Mr. Diesel and his production company, which is also named as a defendant, did not immediately return requests for comment.Mr. Diesel, 56, rose to fame after Steven Spielberg cast him as a soldier in “Saving Private Ryan”; he established himself as a leading man primed for brawny roles with his performances as a killer in the “Chronicles of Riddick” series and a member of the Navy SEALs in the comedy “The Pacifier.” In 2010, he was filming another starring role in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, which he revisited this past year in “Fast X.”Hours after the encounter in the hotel room, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Jonasson received a call from an executive at the production company — Mr. Diesel’s sister, Samantha Vincent — and was told that it no longer needed “any extra help.” Ms. Vincent, who could not immediately be reached for comment, is also named as a defendant.Ms. Jonasson said in the lawsuit that all employees of the production company had been required to sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from sharing anything related to Mr. Diesel.“For years, Ms. Jonasson remained silent,” the lawsuit said, “afraid to speak out against one of the world’s highest-grossing actors, afraid she would be ostracized from the industry which had a pattern of protecting powerful men and silencing survivors of sexual harassment and assault, and concerned that as a green card holder that speaking out could jeopardize her potential future citizenship.”Ms. Jonasson sued under a California law passed in the wake of the #MeToo movement that opened a window for people accusing someone of sexual assault to sue even if the statute of limitations had run out. Her lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also alleges wrongful termination and retaliation. More

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      France’s President Condemns ‘Manhunt’ Against Gérard Depardieu

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      Emmanuel Macron broke with his culture minister, who had called comments made by Depardieu in a documentary a “disgrace.” The actor is facing renewed scrutiny over sexual assault accusations.President Emmanuel Macron of France this week condemned what he called a “manhunt” targeting Gérard Depardieu, the embattled French actor whose worldwide fame has been tarnished in recent years by allegations of sexual harassment and assault.Macron’s comments, which prompted swift criticism, came after a documentary that aired in France this month showed the actor making crude sexual and sexist comments during a 2018 trip to North Korea.Depardieu, 74, has faced renewed scrutiny in the wake of the documentary, including new accusations of sexual assault, the stripping of several international honors and the removal of a likeness of him from the Musée Grévin, a Paris wax museum. He has denied any wrongdoing.Rima Abdul Malak, France’s culture minister, said she was “disgusted” by Depardieu’s comments in the documentary and that disciplinary proceedings would determine whether he should also lose his Legion of Honor, France’s highest award.But in a television interview on Wednesday evening, Macron mounted a staunch defense of Depardieu, who was once one of France’s most prominent and prolific leading men. Macron said that Depardieu “makes France proud” and castigated an “era of suspicion” against prominent artistic or cultural figures.“One thing you’ll never see me in is a manhunt,” Macron told France 5 television, calling himself an “admirer” of Depardieu.As France’s president, Macron is the grand master of the order of the Legion of Honor, an award created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 for “outstanding merit” in a field and given to Depardieu in 1996. Macron said his culture minister had overstepped “a bit too much.”“Am I going to start stripping the Legion of Honor from artists or officials when they say things that shock me?” Macron said. “The answer is no.”“You can accuse someone — maybe there are victims, and I respect them, and I want them to be able to defend their rights,” he added. “But there is also a presumption of innocence,” he said.Macron’s comments reflected the mixed reaction to the #MeToo movement in France, where the reckoning with sexism was hailed by feminist groups, but also fueled worries over the influence of puritanical sexual mores and cancel culture imported from America.France’s movie industry has grappled with several high-profile accusations of sexual abuse in recent years and taken steps to address them. But the country has also given a warm reception to artists accused of abuse — including Johnny Depp and Louis C.K. — exposing a cultural divide with the United States.Feminists and leftist politicians said on Thursday that they were appalled by Macron’s comments.“Manhunts remain prohibited. The hunt for women, on the other hand, remains open,” Osez Le Féminisme, a feminist group, said on social media, while Sandrine Rousseau, a Green lawmaker, called Macron’s comments “yet another insult to the movement to let victims of sexual violence speak out.”François Hollande, Macron’s predecessor as president, criticized him for extolling Depardieu’s acting instead of expressing support for victims of sexual crimes.“No, we are not proud of Gérard Depardieu,” Hollande told France Inter radio, noting that Macron once called gender equality and the fight against sexism a top priority. “And that’s how he treats the issue of Gérard Depardieu?” Hollande said.Depardieu is still an internationally recognized figure who, in the last 50 years, has had roles in more than 250 movies, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”But he has faced a growing number of sexual abuse accusations in recent years.In interviews in April with Mediapart, an investigative news site, 13 women — actresses, makeup artists and production staff — accused Depardieu of making inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during film shoots. Two other women made similar accusations in interviews this summer with France Inter.Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault in one case, which involves Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who says he sexually assaulted her in Paris in 2018, when she was 22, during informal rehearsals for a theater production.Depardieu has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations, and he has categorically denied any wrongdoing.“I have never, ever abused a woman,” he wrote in a rare letter to the newspaper Le Figaro in October.“All my life, I’ve been provocative, outgoing, sometimes crude,” Depardieu wrote, adding an apology for “acting like a child who wants to amuse the gallery.” But, he added, “I’m neither a rapist nor a predator.”The documentary that set off a new wave of scrutiny aired this month on France 2 and features previously unseen footage of Depardieu on a 2018 trip to North Korea, where he is seen repeatedly making extremely crude and uninhibited sexual and sexist comments about women.The documentary suggests that sexual jokes, comments and attitudes by Depardieu on movie sets were commonplace and widely-known, but that the French movie industry brushed them off.Four women accuse Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct in the documentary, including Arnould and Hélène Darras, an actress who says he sexually assaulted her on a 2008 film set and who filed a suit against him in September. Depardieu has not been charged in that case.After the documentary aired, Quebec announced that the actor was being stripped of the Canadian province’s highest honor and a Belgian town where he once lived said it was revoking an honorary title.This week, extra woes for Depardieu piled up quickly. The Musée Grévin said that his wax statue, which first entered the museum in 1981, had been removed. A spokeswoman said that this was “following reactions from visitors who were very shocked by the actor’s comments” and who had then verbally abused employees.On Wednesday, Ruth Baza, a Spanish journalist, told the newspaper La Vanguardia that Depardieu had kissed and groped her without her consent when she was in Paris in 1995 to interview him for a magazine piece.Like many public officials in France — Macron first and foremost — Abdul Malak, the culture minister, said that she was “against cancel culture.”“We are not going to stop watching his movies,” she told France 5 television of Depardieu last week. But she said his comments in the documentary could constitute sexual harassment and were “intolerable,” reflecting badly on France.“He is such a monument of world cinema,” Abdul Malak said, adding that she had received messages from ministers and other cultural figures from around the world “who are shocked, who say, ‘To us, he was such a symbol of France.’” More

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      Sean Combs Accused of Raping 17-Year-Old Girl in 2003 in Lawsuit

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      In the complaint, an unnamed woman says she was flown from the Detroit area to New York on a private plane and gang-raped in a recording studio. Mr. Combs denied the allegations.Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been named in three recent lawsuits accusing him of rape, now faces a fourth complaint, by a woman who says that Mr. Combs and two other men gang-raped her in a New York recording studio 20 years ago, when she was 17 years old.In the latest lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the woman, who is not named in the court papers, described a nightmarish scene on a night in 2003, when she was in the 11th grade. The woman says in the complaint that she met two associates of Mr. Combs at a lounge in the Detroit area, and they took her on a private plane to New York. There, the suit says, the three men gave the woman copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, and took turns raping her in the studio’s bathroom as she drifted in and out of consciousness.When they were done, the suit says, the woman fell into a fetal position in a bathroom, lying on the floor in pain, and she was soon driven to an airport and put on a plane back to Michigan.In a statement, Mr. Combs said: “Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”Through his lawyers, Mr. Combs has denied the allegations in the three earlier suits.Douglas H. Wigdor, a lawyer for the unidentified woman, released his own statement that said: “As alleged in the complaint, defendants preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang-raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’s studio.”“The depravity of these abhorrent acts,” he added, “scarred” the woman “for life.”The first of the recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs, who has been known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was filed on Nov. 16 by Casandra Ventura, a singer once signed to Mr. Combs’s label, Bad Boy, who was also his longtime girlfriend. In a graphic 35-page complaint, Ms. Ventura, who performs as Cassie, accused him of rape and forcing her to have sex with a series of male prostitutes, as well as subjecting her to violent beatings that took place over nearly a decade. The case was settled in just one day. Mr. Combs denied the accusations and Ms. Ventura said in a statement that the case had been resolved “amicably.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Former Grammys Head Michael Greene Accused of Sexual Assault in Lawsuit

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      In a complaint, Terri McIntyre, who worked at the Recording Academy in the mid-1990s, says the organization’s then leader, Michael Greene, subjected her to ongoing misconduct.A woman who worked at the Grammys organization in the 1990s has accused its former chief executive, Michael Greene, of drugging and sexually abusing her nearly 30 years ago and of making sex a condition of her employment, according to a lawsuit filed in California on Wednesday.Terri McIntyre, a former executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy, the nonprofit group behind the Grammy Awards, sued Mr. Greene in Los Angeles Superior Court, in the latest of a wave of lawsuits accusing powerful men in the music industry of past misconduct.In her suit, which also names the Recording Academy as a defendant, Ms. McIntyre says that from 1994 to 1996, Mr. Greene caught her in a “trap” in which he regularly pressured her into sexual contact, and forced sex on her against her will.Mr. Greene could not be immediately reached for comment but has previously denied allegations that he sexually harassed employees while an executive with the Grammys.In a statement, the Recording Academy said: “In light of pending litigation, the academy declines to comment on these allegations, which occurred nearly 30 years ago. Today’s Recording Academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual misconduct and we will remain steadfast in that commitment.”In her lawsuit, Ms McIntyre says that while attending a Grammy board meeting in Hawaii in May 1994, soon after she got the job, Mr. Greene gave her Champagne in his hotel room. She “quickly began to feel unwell and began to lose control of her physical movements,” she says in the court papers. She later woke up nude in Mr. Greene’s bed and realized she had been “violated,” according to the suit.On another occasion, she says in the complaint, she was driving with Mr. Greene to a business meeting when he unexpectedly took her to his home near Malibu, Calif., and forced her to perform oral sex in his kitchen.Throughout her time at the Recording Academy, Ms. McIntyre says, Mr. Greene made it clear that enduring his harassment was part of a “quid pro quo proposition” in which she could succeed at the organization, and in the music industry, only if she had a sexual relationship with him. In her complaint, the woman said she was a single mother and needed the job to care for her young daughter.The suit was filed a month after another case in New York against Neil Portnow, Mr. Greene’s successor as the Grammys’ chief. In that suit, an unnamed woman accused Mr. Portnow of drugging and raping her in a New York hotel room in 2018. Mr. Portnow denied the accusations.Ms. McIntyre’s suit offers a new perspective on a tumultuous period in Grammys history. In 2002, Mr. Greene was forced out of the academy after 14 years at its helm, during which he was widely credited with expanding the organization and transforming its annual ceremony into a lucrative, must-see television event. At the same time, Mr. Greene was dogged by a series of scandals, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination, and allegations that MusiCares, a Grammy charity founded under his watch, had spent less than 10 percent of its donations on its stated purpose of helping suffering and indigent musicians.The tipping point for Mr. Greene’s ouster was an accusation by the academy’s human resources officer that he had sexually abused her in a parking lot; he denied the accusation, and the academy said that an investigation had cleared Mr. Greene of wrongdoing. According to news accounts at the time, that woman was paid $650,000 to settle her allegation, a reported payment that Ms. McIntyre cited in her suit.According to reports in The Los Angeles Times in 2001 and 2002, the academy’s human resources department was created because of an earlier accusation against Mr. Greene. A spokesman for the Recording Academy did not answer a question about when the human resources department was created.In 1996, Ms. McIntyre says in her complaint, she left the academy and the music business overall because Mr. Greene had blackballed her in the industry. Ms. McIntyre’s lawyers gave The New York Times a copy of her resignation letter, which reads: “I am compelled to leave due to what I perceive to be serious problems in my work environment.”In her suit, Ms. McIntyre also says that years later, she became an anonymous source for Chuck Philips, then a reporter at The Los Angeles Times, whose articles investigating Mr. Greene’s conduct precipitated the executive’s ouster. In 1999, Mr. Philips and another Los Angeles Times journalist, Michael A. Hiltzik, shared a Pulitzer Prize in beat reporting for a series of articles about the music industry. The articles included discussions of Mr. Greene’s power and compensation at the Grammys; the problems at MusiCares; and complaints from Grammy insiders about the organization’s accounting practices.Mr. Philips could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.After leaving the Grammys, Mr. Greene — who began his career as a saxophonist — founded a company called Artist Tribe, which he has described as a “creative production, technology, education, database and philanthropic enterprise” that serves “creative and cultural communities.”A call on Wednesday to a number associated with Mr. Greene was answered by a man who said that Mr. Greene was on a plane and was not available to comment on the lawsuit.In her suit, Ms. McIntyre says that after her resignation, Mr. Greene and the Recording Academy offered to pay her severance money in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, but she refused.Ms. McIntyre’s suit is the latest in a series that have accused powerful men in the music industry of sexual harassment and abuse. In addition to Mr. Portnow, those men have included the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and the producer L.A. Reid; Mr. Combs and Mr. Rose denied the allegations, while Mr. Tyler denied one accusation and did not respond to a second, and Mr. Reid did not respond.Many of the suits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that gave a one-year window for people who say they were the victims of sexual abuse to bring a civil suit even if the original statute of limitations for their case had expired. That window expired last month. But a similar law in California, under which Ms. McIntyre brought her case, allows cases to be brought until the end of the year.Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More

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      Former Model Sues Axl Rose, Accusing Him of 1989 Rape

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      Sheila Kennedy filed a complaint in New York State Supreme Court that says the Guns N’ Roses singer “overpowered” her in a hotel room. A lawyer for Mr. Rose said “this incident never happened.”Axl Rose of the band Guns N’ Roses was sued on Wednesday by a woman who accused him of dragging her by the hair, tying her up and raping her in a New York hotel in 1989.The suit was filed in New York State Supreme Court, in Manhattan, by Sheila Kennedy, a former model who has appeared in Penthouse magazine. She accused Mr. Rose of sexual assault and battery, and her suit seeks unspecified damages.Ms. Kennedy’s suit is the latest in a series of cases against powerful men that have been brought under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that created a one-year window for people who say they were victims of sexual abuse to file civil suits after the statute of limitations has expired. That window ends this week.In recent weeks, such cases have been filed against Steven Tyler of Aerosmith; the music executive L.A. Reid; and Neil Portnow, the former head of the organization behind the Grammy Awards. Last Thursday, the singer Cassie filed an explosive suit against Sean Combs — the producer and executive also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy — but it was settled in one day. (Mr. Portnow has denied the accusation; Mr. Tyler and Mr. Reid have not responded. A lawyer for Mr. Combs said that the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing.”)In a statement, Alan S. Gutman, a lawyer for Mr. Rose, said: “Simply put, this incident never happened.” He added: “Though he doesn’t deny the possibility of a fan photo taken in passing, Mr. Rose has no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to the Plaintiff, and has never heard about these fictional allegations prior to today.”In her suit, Ms. Kennedy says she met Mr. Rose in early 1989, when she went to a New York nightclub with a friend who was a fan of Guns N’ Roses. The band was at perhaps the peak of its fame — and its members relished their reputations as hard-partying bad boys — but Ms. Kennedy says in her suit that at the time she did not know who Mr. Rose was.According to Ms. Kennedy’s complaint, Mr. Rose invited her and another woman to a party at his suite in a hotel on Central Park West, where he offered them cocaine and alcohol. According to the complaint, the party “was in full swing” until Mr. Rose called for everyone to leave except Ms. Kennedy, the other woman and a man.According to the complaint, Mr. Rose began having sex with the other woman, in an “aggressive” way that Ms. Kennedy says in the suit “appeared painful” for the woman. Ms. Kennedy says that she went to another room in the suite, where she could hear the sounds of breaking glass and objects being thrown in Mr. Rose’s room, and that she heard him yelling at the other woman and calling her a “whore.”According to Ms. Kennedy’s suit, Mr. Rose stormed into the room where she was, knocked her down, “grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the suite back to his bedroom.” Her knees were bleeding from being scraped against the rug, the suit says.In Mr. Rose’s room, the suit says, he threw her facedown on the bed, tied her hands behind her back with pantyhose and sexually assaulted her, forcing anal penetration. The suit says that Mr. Rose never sought Ms. Kennedy’s consent, and that she “did not consent and felt overpowered.”In her suit, Ms. Kennedy says that she has suffered anxiety and depression as a result of the incident with Mr. Rose, and that her career as an actress and model has suffered. Ms. Kennedy catalogs her success as a Penthouse model, mentioning that she was Pet of the Year in 1983 and was on the cover of the magazine four times.Ms. Kennedy has discussed her encounter with Mr. Rose in the past, including an interview on the website of The Daily Mail in 2016, and in a memoir, “No One’s Pet,” published that same year. She also appeared in “Look Away,” a 2021 documentary about sexual abuse of young women in the music industry.In her memoir, Ms. Kennedy also described her encounter with Mr. Rose as a violent one, which left her “crying and bleeding.” But she added in the book: “Weirdly enough, I was okay with this. I had wanted to be with him since the minute I’d first laid eyes on him, and now I was getting him.”When asked about that account, Ann Olivarius, a lawyer for Ms. Kennedy, said in a statement: “Like many victims of sexual assault, it has taken Sheila time to come to terms with her experiences and to be able to talk about it fully and openly.” More

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      Cassie Settles Lawsuit Accusing Sean Combs of Rape and Abuse

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      The R&B singer Casandra Ventura and the music mogul did not disclose terms of the settlement, which came one day after Ms. Ventura filed an explosive complaint.Sean Combs and the singer Cassie have reached a settlement just one day after she filed an explosive lawsuit accusing the hip-hop mogul of rape and numerous instances of physical abuse.The parties announced on Friday evening that they had reached an agreement to resolve the case, though they disclosed no details about the terms of the settlement.“I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control,” Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, said in a statement. “I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support.”In a statement, Mr. Combs said: “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love.”For Mr. Combs, the settlement quickly shuts down what could have been a risky and potentially embarrassing process of legal discovery — in which reams of evidence are made public — and a possible trial. And Ms. Ventura, who has already aired her accusations through a public complaint, avoids a cross-examination by Mr. Combs’s attorneys.In a lawsuit that drew international attention, Ms. Ventura — who signed to Mr. Combs’s Bad Boy label in 2005, when she was 19, and dated him for about a decade — accused Mr. Combs of what she said was years of beatings, controlling behavior and various forms of sexual abuse, including a rape. In response, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Ben Brafman, said, “Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations.”According to Ms. Ventura’s suit, which was filed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Combs assaulted her numerous times, leaving her bloodied and bruised; she said his employees sometimes took her to hotel rooms for days to recover out of the public eye.In one of the suit’s most disturbing allegations, Ms. Ventura said that for years she was forced to participate in sexual encounters with a succession of male prostitutes, as Mr. Combs watched, masturbated and recorded videos. According the suit, Mr. Combs called these events “freak offs,” and they took place in a number of high-end hotels throughout the United States.According to Ms. Ventura’s suit, Mr. Combs controlled nearly every aspect of her life, paying for her homes, car, clothes and other necessities, and even had access to her personal medical records. The suit says Ms. Ventura never went to the police because she feared it “would merely give Mr. Combs another excuse to hurt her.”Mr. Combs, who started Bad Boy in 1993, became one of the most powerful and successful figures in the hip-hop industry, working with stars like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige, and helping to transform rap music and culture into a global pop phenomenon and a major business.Still, his rise to fame has been dotted with allegations of violence, including that he and his bodyguards beat a rival music executive, Steve Stoute, with a Champagne bottle and other items.Last year, Mr. Combs received a lifetime achievement honor at the BET Awards, and in September he was given the global icon award at MTV’s Video Music Awards.Even with the settlement, however, the damage to Mr. Combs’s reputation and legacy may be substantial. In the day since Ms. Ventura’s suit was filed, past allegations of violence and abuse have been resurfaced, and various musicians have publicly signaled their support for Ms. Ventura.In a statement, Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ms. Ventura, said: “I am very proud of Ms. Ventura for having the strength to go public with her lawsuit. She ought to be commended for doing so.” More