Snoop Dogg has been accused of raping a woman in his dressing room, it emerged on Tuesday.
The alleged victim claims to have been sexually assaulted by the entertainer and his friends following the recording of a show for US television network ABC News.
According to legal papers obtained by website thesmokinggun.com, she alleges she was drugged before being sexually assaulted by the rapper and four of his associates. She is seeking $35 million in combined damages.
The complaint was filed at Los Angeles Superior Court just weeks after Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Broadus) filed a pre-emptive lawsuit claiming he was the target of an extortion scheme hatched by the woman in question, the website reports.
The 12-page complaint details the circumstances surrounding the alleged attack in January 2002 when Snoop Dogg co-hosted the Jimmy Kimmel Live television show.
The legal documents name ABC News, the Kimmel show, and the Walt Disney Company as defendants, alleging the network is partly liable for the attack because the entertainer’s dressing room was stocked with “large quantities” of champagne and marijuana.
The morning after the incident, the alleged victim claims she told family members about the assault, but was advised not to report it to police because the rapper was a gang member and “would send someone to kill her”.
Four months later, according to the complaint, she contacted the Kimmel program and told them she had been sexually assaulted at the show and was calling the police.
Both sides made an attempt to mediate the dispute in October 2004. This month they agreed to settle at a financial sum less than originally recommended by the mediator, according to the lawsuit.
The alleged deal fell apart on January 18 when the rapper’s insurance company refused to “pay a portion of the compensation previously promised” by his legal team, the papers state.
The claimant alleges that the incident caused “serious emotional distress and anxiety” and left her reclusive, unable to work or go out. She is said to have been “psychiatrically hospitalised” in September 2003 as a direct result of the alleged attack.