Garth Brooks returned to the stage Thursday after denying allegations of rape and sexual misconduct leveled at him in a civil lawsuit filed by a former employee.

The country superstar posted a message to fans after playing his final Las Vegas residency show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, telling them how much he needed the outing.

“If there was ever a night I really needed this, TONIGHT was that night! Thank you for my life!!!!! love, g,” he wrote on Instagram and shared a photo from the concert.

On Thursday, the “Friends in Low Places” hitmaker vehemently denied allegations made by a former employee, identified in court documents as “Jane Roe” — a hair and makeup stylist who worked with Brooks from 2017 to about 2020, and for his wife, country star Trisha Yearwood, since 1999. The woman alleged that Brooks raped her in a Los Angeles hotel room in May 2019 and subjected her to “other abhorrent sexual conduct” and harassment while she worked for him, the complaint said. was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

In her complaint, obtained by The Times, the woman alleged that Brooks “used the fact that Ms. Roe had dared to speak about the harm he had inflicted on her as an opportunity to inflict further harm and pain” by filing a preemptive complaint to serve. Mississippi court has dropped her lawsuit in California.

“Brooks desperately wants to prevent his millions of fans from learning about the heinous things he said and did to a young female employee who did nothing to deserve such treatment,” the complaint said. “But our justice system is not designed to give wealthy offenders the opportunity to take on victims of sexual violence who are trying to hold perpetrators accountable. Yet this is exactly what Brooks is trying to do with Abusive Mississippi Action.”

The woman’s lawsuit lists assault, battery, sexual assault and gender violence among the complaints. She is seeking a jury trial and punitive and exemplary damages for her “mental and physical pain and suffering.”

Brooks, 62, responded to the filing Thursday by denying the claims and accused the woman of extortion.

“Over the past two months, I have been harassed endlessly with threats, lies and tragic stories about what my future would be if I did not write a multi-million dollar check. It was like waving a loaded gun in my face,” Brooks said in a statement to The Times.

“Hush money, no matter how much or how little it is, is still hush money. In my eyes, this means admitting to behavior that I am not capable of doing: ugly acts that no human being should ever do to another,” he said.

The country star said last month that he anonymously filed a lawsuit against the woman in U.S. District Court in Mississippi “to speak out against racketeering and defamation of character.”

‘I want to make music tonight. I want to continue our good deeds in the future. It breaks my heart that these wonderful things are now up for debate. I trust the system, I am not afraid of the truth, and I am not the man they have portrayed me to be,” he said.