Nick Carter sues sexual assault accuser Melissa Schuman for defamation: Breaking down the singer's ongoing legal battles

Nick Carter is suing Melissa Schuman, a former member of the girl group Dream, who accused him of raping her in 2003.

The Backstreet Boys singer filed a legal response to Schuman’s 2023 lawsuit against him for sexual assault and battery. His counterclaim denies her allegations and countersues her for $2.5 million, alleging that she intentionally defamed him with her allegations.

This is one of three sexual assault cases filed against the boy band performer. He has denied all allegations of sexual assault and abuse and has countersued the other accusers as well.

🚨 What just happened?

Schuman and Carter filmed the teen horror film The Hollow together in 2003. She later visited his Santa Monica, Calif., apartment with a friend and claims he gave her a sedative and sexually assaulted her. Carter was 22 and Schuman was an 18-year-old virgin, she said. In the days that followed, she said she privately revealed the alleged assault to her friend who was with her, the friend’s mother, members of her own family and her therapist.

Fast-forward to 2017 when Schuman publicly accused Carter of sexual assault on her blog amid the #MeToo movement. She filed a police report against him the following year, but Los Angeles investigators declined to pursue a case due to the statute of limitations expiring. In 2023, she filed a lawsuit against Carter after a 2022 California law expanded the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases.

Carter’s cross-complaint is a response to her April 2023 lawsuit. Filed July 26 in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County and obtained by People and Variety on Aug. 13, Carter claims Schuman made false and defamatory statements when she publicly accused him of sexual assault in her blog post as well as in subsequent press conferences and interviews. (Schuman recently shared her story in the documentary Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter.)

Carter claims their sexual encounter was consensual. He alleges Schuman was motivated to make false accusations to help her "dwindling career" amid her “thirst for internet relevance” and purposely made the claims to “damage Carter's reputation” and career. He says he lost millions in endorsement deals with brands including MeUndies, Vrbo and Roblox. Carter, who is demanding $2.5 million in damages, also accused Schuman and her father of recruiting and grooming third parties to defame him.

In the filing, Carter denied "each and every" accusation made by Schuman in her lawsuit. It stated: "Carter did not sexually assault" her.

⚖️ Carter’s legal troubles

This is not Carter’s only sexual assault lawsuit, nor is it his only defamation case.

The singer, who continues to tour with the Backstreet Boys, is also locked in a legal battle with accuser Shannon “Shay” Ruth, who sued him for sexual battery in December 2022. Ruth’s case, filed in Clark County, Nev., alleged that Carter raped her after a Backstreet Boys concert in 2001 when she was 17 years old.

In response to Ruth’s lawsuit, Carter filed a defamation countersuit in Nevada in February 2023, naming Ruth and Schuman as defendants. He accused the women of taking advantage of the #MeToo movement to launch an “orchestrated” campaign to “defame and vilify” him “to garner fame and extort Carter out of money.”

Schuman's attorney Karen Barth Menzies referred to both legal cases in a new statement to People, saying, "Carter’s California counterclaim makes the same arguments as his stalled Nevada lawsuit, and both show that his approach to defend sexual assault claims is to attack the victims.”

Additionally, in August 2023, Carter was sued by a third woman, identified as “A.R,” for alleged sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress as causes of action. She claimed, in her Nevada filing, that Carter “knowingly provided alcohol and drugs” in 2003, when she was 15 and he was in his early 20s, and sexually assaulted her on a bus and a yacht in Florida.

Carter’s legal team claimed A.R. consented to having sex and told him and others that she was 18.

Carter has since added A.R. to his defamation countersuit against Ruth and Schuman in January 2024. According to Rolling Stone, A.R.’s civil lawsuit against Carter has now been consolidated with Ruth’s under the same judge in Nevada.

📺 Women detailed accusations in docuseries

The three accusers — with A.R. later identified as Ashley — gave interviews detailing their claims against Carter in the four-part Investigation Discovery docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter, which premiered in May.

Carter — who shares three children with wife Lauren Kitt — reacted to the doc through his attorney, saying, “These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators. Those cases are working their way through the legal system now, and, based on both the initial court rulings and the overwhelming evidence, we have every belief that we will prevail and hold them accountable for spreading these falsehoods.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is here for survivors 24/7 with free, anonymous help. 800-656-HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.