Guns ‘N’ Roses rocker Axl Rose has been accused of assault and battery by a model and actress, which he has denied.
Sheila Kennedy sued the 61-year-old for an encounter in a New York City hotel in 1989, claiming he ‘targeted’ her.
According to the complaint, obtained by People, he used his celebrity status to ‘manipulate, control and violently sexually assault’ the now 61-year-old model.
They met at a nightclub, with Kennedy stating in the court document that she was not ‘aware’ of who Rose was at the time and had been invited out by her friend.
Kennedy and Rose left the club with his entourage and headed for his hotel suite, where it is claimed he ‘pushed Kennedy against the wall and kissed her.’
She adds that she did not mind this as she was open to sleeping with him but became ‘uncomfortable’ as he began to encourage group sex.
A lawyer for Rose has denied the claims, stating: ‘Simply put, this incident never happened. Notably, these fictional claims were filed the day before the New York State filing deadline expires.
‘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. Mr. Rose is confident this case will be resolved in his favour.’
In the complaint, Kennedy added that Rose had initiated sex with another model in front of her so she left the room and heard the Sweet Child O’ Mine hitmaker screaming obscenities at the other woman.
She also claims he threw glass at the other model before finding Kennedy, knocking her to the floor, and ‘grabbing her by the hair and dragging her’ back into his room.
The ‘very painful’ encounter left her with bloodied knees as Rose tied her hands behind her back and ‘forcibly penetrated Kennedy’s anus with his penis’.
‘He treated her like property used solely for his sexual pleasure,’ the complaint continued. ‘Kennedy did not consent and felt overpowered. She felt she had no escape or exit and was compelled to acquiesce.
‘She believed Rose would physically attack her, or worse, if she said no or attempted to push him away. She understood that the safest thing to do was to lie in bed and wait for Rose to finish assaulting her.’
The allegations were filed on Wednesday, one day before the expiration of the N.Y. Adult Survivors Act – legislation which gave adult sex assault survivors a one-year window to sue their abusers regardless of when the abuse occured.
Kennedy has written about this encounter before in her 2016 memoir, No One’s Pet, stating she was ‘crying and bleeding’ as he assaulted her.
At the time she wrote: ‘[There are] a lot of people out there who want to see him burn in hell. I don’t feel that way about him, but I do feel in a way that he got everything he deserved.’
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