Musician Garth Brooks has hinted that he wants to quit the U.S. and move to Ireland with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, just one month after he was sensationally accused of raping his spouse’s makeup artist.
Brooks, 62, opened up about his potential plans for a move to Europe during a recent episode of his Facebook Live series, “Inside Studio G,” during which he admitted that his 60-year-old wife is “pushing” for him to purchase a home in Ireland.
Referring to Yearwood as “The Queen,” Brooks, who is currently based in Tennessee, explained that his wife “fell head over heels” for Ireland while they enjoyed an extended stay there in late 2022, when he performed a number of shows in Dublin.
“Actually, the Queen is pushing hard for that house over there,” he revealed. “I think this last time over there, she just fell head over heels in love with the country. We played two weekends, so we went on that stint across the country, and everyone was so sweet to her.”
His confession comes just weeks after he and Yearwood sold their mansion in Brentwood, TN, for $3.34 million—a sale that closed hours before Brooks was publicly accused of rape and assault by a makeup artist and hairstylist who worked with his wife for years.
exclusively revealed that the couple had parted ways with the property, which served as a set for more than 100 episodes of Yearwood’s popular cooking show, “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen.”
It was listed for sale in 2023 for $4.5 million. Brooks and Yearwood reduced the price several times, first to $3.95 million and then to $3.8 million before finally securing an interested party.
The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home was officially sold on Oct. 2—one day before it was publicly revealed that Brooks had been accused of rape and sexual assault in a lawsuit filed by a woman known only as Jane Roe.
The lawsuit was filed at the California Supreme Court in Los Angeles County on Oct. 3. It identifies Brooks’ accuser as a professional makeup artist and hairstylist with 30 years of experience, noting that she was first hired to do Yearwood’s glam back in 1999, according to ABC News.
Brooks, who has an estimated net worth of between $300 million and $350 million, has vehemently denied the allegations, insisting in a statement to the broadcaster that he is the victim of targeted “threats and lies.”
“For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars,” he said.
“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face. Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money. In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of—ugly acts no human should ever do to another,” he continued.
He added that he and his wife had already filed a lawsuit against his accuser for extortion and defamation of character, explaining that he had chosen to do so “anonymously for the sake of families on both sides.”
Brooks concluded: “I want to play music tonight. I want to continue our good deeds going forward. It breaks my heart these wonderful things are in question now. I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be.”
It is unclear whether the sale of the home is in any way related to the lawsuit filed against Brooks, in which Roe claims that she began working with the musician in 2017 but was hired on a more regular basis in 2019 when she began “experiencing financial difficulties.”
Roe claims that Brooks raped her in a hotel room in Los Angeles in May 2019, with her attorneys writing in the lawsuit: “Brooks rape of Ms. Roe was painful and traumatic. With cold disregard for Ms. Roe, when Brooks finished, it was business as usual. Ms. Roe worked quickly to style his hair and do his makeup for the event so he was on time.”
The property that Yearwood and Brooks sold was described in its listing as an “extraordinary historic estate” nestled in the center of 4.42 acres of “pristine, private grounds.”
It boasts an array of amenities, including a state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen decked out with “high-end Wolf appliances, including a double oven, a six-burner cooktop, a warming drawer, a 30-inch gourmet microwave, and a sleek Sub-Zero refrigerator.”
Yearwood and Brooks are currently spending most of their time at another extraordinary mansion in Nashville, TN, which the pair built from the ground up on a plot of land that Brooks purchased in 2001.
