ABC Won’t Be Airing “A Very Backstreet Holiday” After New Nick Carter Rape Allegations Surface
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before (before…wow there must be an echo in here); but Nick Carter has been accused of rape. This time, an accuser named Shannon “Shay” Ruth has just come forward and alleged that Nick raped her on his tour bus back in 2001 when she was just 17 years old. ABC already has that other messy thing going on at the moment, so they quickly pulled an upcoming Backstreet Boys holiday special from their lineup.
According to Variety, A Very Backstreet Holiday was in the can and set to air next week until a new set of disturbing allegations against Nick from back in his parted-down-the-middle butt-cut hair days came to light just yesterday.
“A Very Backstreet Holiday,” the Backstreet Boys’ Christmas special filmed this month in Los Angeles, will no longer air on ABC, Variety has confirmed. The news comes amid allegations that singer Nick Carter raped a 17-year-old girl during the band’s 2001 tour.
The special was set to air on ABC on Dec. 14, featuring Carter, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson, Brian Littrell and Howie Dorough as they celebrate the season and perform hits from their 10th album “A Very Backstreet Christmas.” Seth Rogen, Meghan Trainor, Rob Riggle, Nikki Glaser, Ron Funches and Atsuko Okatsuka were scheduled to appear.
Nick’s accuser appeared with her lawyer at a press conference yesterday and announced that they’d filed a sexual battery lawsuit. She also shared the very disturbing details of what she says happened on a Backstreet Boys tour bus 21 years ago.
On Thursday, a 39-year-old woman, Shannon “Shay” Ruth, filed a sexual battery lawsuit accusing the singer of raping her and infecting her with HPV when she was 17. She alleged the assault took place in February 2001 following a Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Wash. Ruth, who identified herself as autistic and living with cerebral palsy, detailed the alleged assault along with her attorneys during a press conference held at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton hotel.
During the press conference and in the lawsuit, she claimed that Carter, 21 at the time, forced himself on her as she “begged him to stop,” and later allegedly told her that she was a “retarded little bitch” who no one would believe if she spoke up.
Here’s part of the press conference where she went into more detail about the alleged incident:
And unsurprisingly, Nick has once again denied that he raped anyone. His lawyer must have a “Nick Carter Rape Denial” template at the ready by now.
“This claim about an incident that supposedly took place more than 20 years ago is not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue,” Carter’s attorney, Michael Holtz, said in a statement to Variety. “Unfortunately, for several years now, Ms. Ruth has been manipulated into making false allegations about Nick – and those allegations have changed repeatedly and materially over time. No one should be fooled by a press stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer – there is nothing to this claim whatsoever, which we have no doubt the courts will quickly realize.”
Nick’s estranged brother Aaron Carter, who recently tragically passed, would often bring up the smoke from Nick’s alleged abusive fires. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays by NSYNC reigns supreme out of all of the boy bands’ holiday songs and JC Chasez’s been transitioning into Santa Claus anyway, so get them on the horn, ABC.
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