‘False Claim’: Axl Rose Slams Ex-Penthouse Pet of the Year Suing Over Alleged 1989 Sexual Assault in Hotel Room, Accuses Her of Rewriting History
Axl denies all allegations of wrongdoing.
Apr. 23 2024, Published 11:10 a.m. ET
Axl Rose asked a judge to toss the lawsuit filed by a former Penthouse Pet of the Year over an alleged sexual assault in 1989 — claiming she had previously spoken positively about their alleged encounter.
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, the Guns N’ Roses frontman demanded all claims be dismissed in Sheila Kennedy’s suit.
Kennedy was Penthouse’s Pet of the Year in 1983.
Axl is firing back in court.
Last year, Kennedy sued Rose in a New York court. The model said she met the rockstar at a club and ended up back at a private party in his hotel room.
She claimed Rose provided “cocaine, champagne, and alcohol to his guests in the suite.” Kennedy admitted she was interested in Rose and kissed him at the party.
Axl says Sheila spoke fondly about him in the past.
However, at the party, Kennedy claimed to have witnessed Rose get rough with another model. She said he then found her and dragged her into the bedroom, the suit alleged.
She claimed Rose sexually assaulted her. “Rose made no attempt to ask for or check that Kennedy was consenting. He treated her like property used solely for his sexual pleasure. He did not use a condom,” her suit read. “Kennedy did not consent and felt overpowered. She felt she had no escape or exit and was compelled to acquiesce. She believed [Axl] would physically attack her, or worse, if she said no or attempted to push him away. She understood that the safest thing to do was to lie in bed and wait for Rose to finish assaulting her."
The model sued seeking unspecified damages for her alleged emotional, physical, and psychological pain.
Her lawyer said, “Kennedy has experienced symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder whenever she hears Rose’s name or the music of Guns N’ Roses. Other sexual encounters have drawn her right back to the night that Rose had assaulted her. When confronted with these memories, Kennedy has experienced intense physical and emotional distress.”
Rose denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the suit.
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Sheila claims Axl was served but he denies it was legit.
He said Kennedy had “repeatedly acknowledged” that he never assaulted her.
Rose said Kennedy spoke about their encounter in her 2016 memoir and in a 2021 documentary. He said in the book she said she “wanted to be with him since the minute I’d first laid eyes on him.”
During her interview, he quoted her as saying Rose had acted “gently” and the sex was “consensual.”
Rose accused Kennedy of attempting to “rewrite history” with her lawsuit.
His lawyer wrote, “Despite having made clear and definitive statements, both before and after the height of the “Me Too” movement, that her alleged sexual encounter with Rose was consensual, her position has now shifted. The belief that the statute of limitations had re-opened and that she could profit from claiming—for the first time, nearly 35 years later—that the incident had not in fact been consensual, was apparently too great an opportunity to pass up, and so she filed this false Complaint a mere two days before its expiration.”
Axl is asking the judge to toss the lawsuit.
Rose asked that Kennedy be sanctioned for bringing the lawsuit.
Now, in his newly filed motion, Rose argued once again for dismissal. His lawyer said, “at the heart of [Kennedy’s] complaint is her salacious, inflammatory, and false claim that Defendant forcibly raped her in 1989. This claim is directly and repeatedly contradicted by Plaintiff’s prior statements — in print and on video Z— and that the incident alleged in the complaint was entirely consensual.”
In addition, Rose argued that Kennedy’s various attempts to serve him have been unsuccessful despite her process server's claims otherwise.
The rockstar asked for the complaint to be dismissed in its entirety.