Nick Carter Sued for Allegedly Raping Teen Fan on Backstreet Boys Tour Bus in 2001

Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was hit with a lawsuit Thursday (Dec. 8) alleging that he raped a 17-year-old fan on his tour bus following a 2001 concert in Washington.

In a civil lawsuit filed in Nevada court, Shannon “Shay” Ruth says Carter picked her from a group of women seeking autographs after a concert in Tacoma. She says he then brought her aboard the bus, gave her an alcoholic beverage called “VIP juice” and repeatedly assaulted her.

The woman, now 39, says waited more than 20 years to come forward because she was afraid of retaliation.

“He told plaintiff she would go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote in the complaint, obtained by Billboard. “He said that he was Nick Carter, and that he had the power to do that. Due to his various threats, plaintiff did not report Carter’s crimes for many years.”

The attack allegedly left Ruth infected with the sexually-transmitted infection human papillomavirus, or HPV, according to the lawsuit.

In addition to Ruth, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of three other unnamed “Jane Doe” accusers who allegedly experienced similar attacks by Carter from 2003 to 2006. According to the complaint, all three of those women were also given alcohol before being forced to have sex with him; one was allegedly similarly underage.

A rep for Carter did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard. An unnamed source close to the singer reportedly told TMZ that the accusations were “categorically false.”

The allegations are not the first against Carter. Back in 2017, Melissa Schuman, a former member of teen-pop group Dream, publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2003 when she was 18 years old. Carter denied the allegations at the time, saying Schuman had “never expressed” to him that “anything we did was not consensual.”

After an investigation into Schuman’s accusations, prosecutors in Los Angeles declined to bring criminal charges against Carter on the grounds that the 10-year statute of limitations had expired.

The new lawsuit against Carter contains explicit and disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault.

Once she had finished her “VIP drink,” Ruth says Carter took her to a bathroom and demanded that she perform oral sex on him: “Alone and under duress, Plaintiff reluctantly complied with his demand. Plaintiff cried during the ordeal.”

Following that incident, Ruth says Carter took her to another room on the bus where he “pushed plaintiff down onto the bed and proceeded to mount her.” She says she “begged him to stop” and tried to get away, but that “every time she said ‘No’ and tried to get up, Carter got angry and pushed her down harder.”

After the attack, Ruth says Carter grabbed her, called her a “retarded little bitch” and said that nobody would believe her story. Ruth has autism and cerebral palsy, according to the complaint.

Read the entire complaint here: