Backstreet Boys star Nick Carter sued for alleged sexual assault
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Nick Carter – best known for being in the hit nineties band, Backstreet Boys – is being sued for alleged sexual battery and assault.
According to fellow pop star Melissa Schuman, who was part of US girl band Dream, Carter used his "role, status and power as a well-known singer" to groom, manipulate and sexually exploit her.
In the complaint – submitted on Tuesday (11 April) – Schuman alleges that the Backstreet Boys singer sexually assaulted her in 2002 in Santa Monica when he was 22 and she was 18, according to court documents seen by the Los Angeles Times.
Schuman also claims that Carter drugged her and raped her, as well as perfoming oral sex on her "against her will", after she told him "over and over" that she didn’t want to have sex until marriage.
But Carter denies the allegations against him, with his lawyer, Liane K. Wakayama, telling TMZ: "Melissa 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."
Wakayama also dismissed the lawsuit as a "PR stunt" and accused Schuman of "plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick, his associates, his friends and his family."
Schuman's lawsuit comes several years after Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Carter. In 2018, she told Santa Monica police that Carter raped her, but prosecutors opted not to pursue the case because the statute of limitations for the alleged crime expired in 2013.
After filing her most recent complaint, Schuman said in a statement given to The Times: "I have faced extraordinary backlash for standing up for myself."
She went on, "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. I’m fighting to make the music industry a safer place to work and perform."
For help with any of the issues discussed in this article, visit: Rape Crisis England & Wales, Rape Crisis Scotland, or Rape Crisis Northern Ireland.
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