Axl Rose has filed court documents asking for the dismissal of a sexual assault lawsuit brought against him in November 2023 by Sheila Kennedy, who was the 1983 Penthouse Pet of the Year.
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RadarOnline.com reports that, according to documents obtained by the website, the Guns N’ Roses frontman insists he didn’t assault Kennedy, as she’d claimed in her lawsuit, and cites multiple occasions where the actress and model said that the 1989 encounter with Rose was consensual.
[RELATED: Guns N’ Roses Singer Axl Rose Breaks Silence on Sexual Assault Claims]
In her suit, Kennedy alleged that Rose physically and sexually assaulted her and had intercourse with her without her consent at a party in a New York City hotel room.
Rose’s Lawyers Claim Kennedy Had Admitted Encounter Was Consensual
In the newly filed documents, Rose’s lawyer points to a passage in Kennedy’s 2016 memoir, No One’s Pet, in which she wrote about the encounter, “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.”
Rose’s lawyer also refers to an interview with Kennedy in the 2021 documentary Look Away, during which she said the encounter “was consented,” and that the singer had been gentle with her and was “not trying to hurt me.” The attorney also pointed that Kennedy commented in the film, “It was okay. He was fine. … I did not consider it rape. It was consensual.”
Asking for Dismissal and That Sanctions Be Imposed
Rose charged Kennedy with trying to “rewrite history.” His lawyer accused her of trying to take advantage of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a law that waived the statute of limitations on suits involving sexual misconduct, and that expired at midnight on November 23, 2023.
“Despite having made clear and definitive statements … that her alleged sexual encounter with Rose was consensual, her position has now shifted,” Rose’s attorney wrote. “The belief that the statute of limitations had re-opened and that she could profit from claiming—for the first time, nearly 35 years later—that the incident had not in fact been consensual, was apparently too great an opportunity to pass up, and so she filed this false Complaint a mere two days before its expiration.”
Rose is asking for Kennedy’s lawsuit to be dismissed and that penalties be imposed on Kennedy and her lawyers. In part, the singer charges Kennedy and her legal team with “engaging in frivolous conduct, making materially false statements, … and failing to conduct reasonable inquiry and diligence.”
Interestingly, right after Kennedy’s lawsuit was filed in November 2023, Rose issued a statement through his lawyer, claiming he had “no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to the Plaintiff.”
What Kennedy Claimed in Her Lawsuit
As originally reported by Billboard.com, which was posted Kennedy’s entire lawsuit filing, she claims to have met Rose at a New York City nightclub in 1989 and was invited her back to his hotel room for a party. She said she and another model went to the hotel with Rose and future MTV VJ Riki Rachtman.
The suit alleges that Kennedy initially was receptive to Rose’s advances when he “pushed [her] against the wall and kissed her” while in the hotel suite, but later in the evening, Rose began having sex with the other model in front of Kennedy and Rachtman in an aggressive way. Rose then allegedly tried to encourage Kennedy to take part in group sex, which she didn’t want to do, so she decided leave and go with Rachtman back to his room.
The suit claims that while she talking with Rachtman in his room, Kennedy heard glass shatter and Rose begin shouting and cursing at the other model, telling her to leave his room.
The lawsuit alleges that Rose then came into Rachtman’s room, and became enraged when he saw Kennedy there, and that he then knocked her to the floor and dragged her by the hair back to his room and into his bedroom. The suit claims that Rose then threw her on his bed, tied her hands behind her back with her pantyhose and, while not wearing a condom, had forcible anal sex with her.
The lawsuit charges that “Rose’s sexual abuse of Kennedy had lifelong emotional, physical, psychological, and financial impacts on Kennedy’s life.” The suit seeks unspecified damages, and charges Rose with assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and gender-motivated violence.
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