Country singer settles sexual assault lawsuit, faces another over sex tape

Jimmie Allen is no longer the subject of a sexual assault lawsuit that was filed by one of his former managers last June, as the Jane Doe in question has now dropped the country singer from the suit as part of a settlement.

In a statement issued to Variety and other media, the woman’s attorneys at FeganScott confirmed that they have filed paperwork asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to dismiss Allen from the claims in the lawsuit. They are not asking the court to take the suit off the books entirely, however, as the woman’s former bosses at the management firm that once handled Allen are still being sued.

“FeganScott can confirm that Jane Doe and Jimmie Allen have reached a mutual accord as to Plaintiff’s claims and Mr. Allen’s counterclaims and have agreed to dismiss them,” said the statement. “The decision reflects only that both parties desire to move past litigation.”

FeganScott continued: “The plaintiff is continuing to pursue her claims against Williams Bowers Management d/b/a Wide Open Music, the Nashville music management firm that employed her as Allen’s day-to-day manager, for their role in the case, and one of its principals, Ash Bowers.”

Allen’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The singer remains the subject of a second, unrelated lawsuit also filed last June by a different Jane Doe, whose assault charge was based in an accusation that, in an initially consensual encounter, Allen ejaculated inside her against her wishes and filmed their sexual activity without consent. That suit is still going forward, as of now, and Allen countersued her, as he did the first Jane Doe.

In the suit that has just been settled, Allen was accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment by his former day-to-day manager, a woman who took on that role in her mid-twenties, shortly out of college.

She alleged she was manipulated and groomed by Allen into an abusive sexual relationship and was suing him for sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, sex trafficking and emotional distress. It claimed that the alleged abuse began in March 2021 during a business trip to Los Angeles where Allen was a celebrity guest on an episode of “American Idol,” when she “was incapacitated and incapable of giving consent. She lost consciousness and awoke naked in her hotel room several hours later, with Jimmie Allen insisting she take Plan B as soon as possible… She realized she had lost her virginity through no choice of her own and felt she had betrayed her faith.” Despite the traumatic circumstance, the woman said abusive sexual encounters lasted for another year and a half, as she believed it was the only way to keep her job.

Allen denied all wrongdoing, insisting that he engaged in a consensual affair with the plaintiff. “”I acknowledge that we had a sexual relationship — one that lasted for nearly two years,” he said in a statement to Variety at the time. “During that time, she never once accused me of any wrongdoing, and she spoke of our relationship and friendship as being something she wanted to continue indefinitely. Only after things ended between us, did she hire a lawyer to reach out and ask for money, which leads me to question her motives….” In response, the plaintiff’s attorneys denied that she had ever asked Allen’s camp for money prior to filing the suit.

In an Instagram post after the first lawsuit was filed, Allen issued a mea culpa to his family, writing to his then-pregnant wife — who had filed for divorce two months before the allegations became public — “I want to publicly apologize to my wife, Alexis, for humiliating her with my affair. I’m embarrassed that my choices have brought shame on her.” Implicit in his statement was that he was a victim, not victimizer. “This business takes so much from you, It’s full of temptations that can cripple you and ruin everything you’ve built. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand them. I will no longer be a victim of my weaknesses.”

Since the lawsuits were filed, Allen was dropped from most of his professional affiliations within the country world, and he has begun to experiment more with styles of music outside of the realm of country, characterizing those moves in his social media posts as organic artistic choices.

In the wake of the allegations, Allen was removed from a main stage spot on last year’s CMA Festival stadium-show lineup, on top of being dropped by his label, BBR Music Group, his management, the Familie, his agency, UTA, and his publicist, Full Coverage Communications.

Allen being put on an ongoing time-out by the country music industry was remarkable after a rise that had seen three of his first four singles reach No. 1 at country radio. Allen had won best new artist honors at both the CMA and ACM Awards, as well as picking up a Grammy nomination for best new artist. Besides his return to “American Idol” (where he was a contestant back in 2011), his high media profile included appearances as a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars” and a judge on the Reese Witherspoon-created Apple series “My Kind of Country.”

Although Allen has mostly projected a confident or even defiant image in his social media since the lawsuits were filed, earlier this month he posted a video on Instagram (where he still maintains more than 500,000 followers) of an acoustic performance in which he debuted a more vulnerable song. In the new song, he sings, “I’ll smile for the camera and say that I’m OK / I’m broken in pieces that no one can see / The truth is that I’m always on the edge, trying to find the point of living / I’m barely holding on, and no one can see that I’m constantly fighting with me.”

Allen does not currently have any tour dates listed on his website, and his “Fan Club” page reads merely: “Coming Soon.”