Lawyers for Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose have filed a response to a lawsuit filed in November by former Penthouse Pet of the Year Sheila Kennedy, who claimed that back in 1989, the rocker sexually assaulted her in his hotel room after they met at a New York nightclub.
In their response, Rose’s lawyers deny a sexual assault occurred and argue that on two occasions, Kennedy acknowledged that her encounter with Rose was consensual.
The first time was in 2016 in her memoir No One’s Pet. “I was okay with this. I had wanted to be with him since the minute I’d first laid eyes on him, and now I was getting him,” she wrote. The second time was in the 2021 documentary Look Away when she said of the encounter, “I did not consider it rape. It was consensual.”
They argue that Kennedy’s suit is an attempt to “rewrite history,” clearly implying she’s doing so for financial gain. They note her story only changed after New York passed the Adult Survivor’s Act, which allowed victims of sexual abuse to sue in cases that would have otherwise fallen outside the usual statute of limitations.
“Kennedy cannot and will not succeed in this unscrupulous attempt at a financial windfall,” they write.
In her suit, Kennedy claimed she “suffered severe emotional, physical, financial and psychological distress” from the encounter with Rose and had “issues with physical and emotional intimacy.” She is seeking unspecified damages.
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