Since their 2005 wedding, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood have been the glowing image of a country-music couple. The hitmakers have performed and recorded together, collaborated on a Christmas album, and spent their time off volunteering for Habitat for Humanity; Brooks even inspired Yearwood’s pivot to cookbooks. But that image cracked last week, when Brooks’s former hairstylist and makeup artist sued him for sexual assault and battery. The anonymous woman said she started working for Brooks in 2017 after working for Yearwood since 1999. She claimed Brooks raped her in 2019, among other allegations, including that he would repeatedly suggest “having a threesome” with Yearwood. Brooks attempted to silence the accusations even before the woman filed her suit, filing his own preemptive lawsuit anonymously in mid-September. Since then, he’s denied her allegations, saying, “I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be.”
But what about Yearwood — is she still standing by her man amid these allegations? Yearwood has not publicly responded to the lawsuit or even posted on social media since it was filed. However, a source told Us Weekly that while Yearwood is “shocked,” she’s still supporting Brooks. “Everyone around him including Trisha and his daughters believe him to be telling the truth,” said the source, who reportedly worked with Brooks recently.
Yearwood’s actions seem to say the same. While Brooks waited for the lawsuit to be filed, he and Yearwood put on a united front publicly. He told USA Today in a story published September 13 (the day he filed his lawsuit) that once he finished his Las Vegas residency next March, he planned “to be the plus one” to Yearwood. Last week, before the lawsuit against him came down, Brooks and Yearwood volunteered together at Habitat for Humanity’s annual Carter Work Project, posing hand in hand at the site. They also spoke to People on October 1, pegged to their volunteering and President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. “My favorite thing about getting to be Ms. Yearwood’s partner is the good times, but also going through the bad times together because that makes you one and it tests your mettle,” Brooks said, while Yearwood added they were “best friends.”
Yearwood appears to have been preparing to weather Brooks’s allegations behind the scenes. The day before the lawsuit against Brooks was filed, Yearwood sold her house in Nashville. She’d bought the property in 2000, shortly after her second divorce, but hadn’t lived there full-time since moving to Oklahoma with Brooks, she previously told People. Yearwood listed the home for $4.5 million in May 2023, per Realtor.com, after previously attempting to sell it in 2014. She dropped the price to $3.95 million this April, before dropping it again to $3.8 million on September 11, two days before Brooks filed his first lawsuit — potentially anticipating the bad PR to come. And Yearwood still settled for below asking price, selling for $3.34 million. While it’s unclear if the timing of the sale is related to the allegations against Brooks, it’s pretty easy to connect those dots.
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