R&B singer Chris Brown is accused of drugging and raping a woman on a yacht in 2020, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in a Los Angeles County court.
The suit, seen by NBC News, alleges that Brown met the woman, identified as Jane Doe, in Miami in late December of that year. The lawsuit says the woman, a professional choreographer and music artist from Los Angeles, was talking on FaceTime with a friend when Brown took the friend’s phone and “told her that he had heard about her music and urged her to head over to Diddy’s home on Star Island as soon as possible.”
After arriving at Diddy’s home the woman boarded a yacht and Brown offered her a drink, according to the lawsuit. While the suit says the yacht was on Diddy’s estate, it is unclear who owned the vessel.
She accepted the drink from Brown while they talked about her music career, the suit states. After giving her a second drink, the woman started to “feel a sudden, unexplained change in consciousness,” the lawsuit says.
It accuses the singer of acting “with the intent to cause harmful or offensive contact when he drugged Plaintiff Jane Doe’s drink.”
“Plaintiff Jane Doe felt disoriented, physically unstable, and started to fall in and out of sleep,” the suit alleges. “Defendant Chris Brown then led a drugged, half-sleep Plaintiff Jane Doe down a corridor and into a bedroom.”
Bown, according to the lawsuit, closed the door and “barred Plaintiff Jane Doe’s attempt to leave, threw Plaintiff Jane Doe on a bed, removed her bikini bottoms, started kissing her.”
The suit says the woman, who was still half-asleep, mumbled for Brown to stop but he “ignored” her.
The suit alleges that Brown raped the woman and then “jumped up and announced he was ‘done.’” He allegedly then told the woman to contact him so they could talk about her music career.
The woman texted a friend for help, who helped her leave the home.
In the weeks following the alleged incident, Brown continued to reach out to the woman, according to the lawsuit. In one message, the singer allegedly “demanded” she take a pill to keep her from getting pregnant, which she took, the suit says.
Last January, after Brown contacted her again, the woman went to his house in California to listen to some music with him, his producer, and another girl.
She went to his house a second time in August while Brown was recording a song, the suit says. During that encounter, Brown became “became loud and irate” when she rejected his request to go upstairs to his bedroom, the lawsuit alleges.
The woman is suing for sexual battery and rape, false imprisonment, emotional distress, and violation of the gender violence statute. She is seeking $20 million.
A representative for Brown could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
A representative for Diddy, who is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, also could not immediately be reached.
Brown addressed the allegations in an Instagram Story early Friday morning.
“I HOPE YALL SEE THIS PATTERN OF [cap] whenever im releasing music or projects,” he wrote, referencing a slang word that describes a person who is lying.
“‘THEY’ try to pull” something, he added without clarifying who he was referring to.
Jane Doe’s attorney, George Vrabeck, said he does not know who Brown was referring to when he said “they.”
“Ariel Mitchell and I are attorneys representing a young woman that was raped. Come on, we’re not the Illuminati. We intend to hold ALL parties accountable so that we might begin to eradicate this behavior from our society,” he said in a statement.
Vrabeck and Mitchell are also representing Jauhara Jeffries, who accused singer Trey Songz of assault. A spokesperson for Songz denied the allegations and declined to comment on Jeffries’ lawsuit.
