Chris Brown, who was arrested along with two other individuals earlier this week in Paris following an accusation of rape, is said to be countersuing his accuser for defamation. All three were released on Tuesday, and appear to have stayed in the city since the accusations became public.
A lawyer for Brown, Raphaël Chiche, tweeted on Thursday that the city's public prosecutor had registered his filing of a complaint against Brown's anonymous accuser "for slanderous denunciation" of his client. Chiche was quoted by Agence France-Presse as maintaining that his client has "had no sexual relationship in any way whatsoever with the complainant."
The lawyer for Brown's accuser, Franck Serfati, was quoted by the AP as specifying that his client had not been physically, but psychologically, pressured into having sex with the singer and his two unnamed associates. "It was a masculine environment," Serfati is quoted as saying, describing a scene of cocaine and alcohol at the hotel where Brown and his entourage were staying.
After his release on Tuesday, Brown posted to social media to deny any wrongdoing. Today, a clothing line that bills itself as "the official clothing brand of Chris Brown" began offering shirts for sale that read: "THAT B**** LYIN'," featuring pictures of the Eiffel Tower and da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Attempts by NPR to contact the two lawyers, as well as a third — Jean-Marc Descoubes, who is also representing Brown — were not successful. French authorities' investigation into the claims is continuing.
Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault of his partner at the time, the singer and businesswoman Rihanna. Brown's ex-girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, was granted a restraining order against him in 2017 after Tran accused Brown of physical abuse, according to the AP. In July 2018, the singer was arrested on charges of felony battery of a photographer in 2017 at a Tampa nightclub. Earlier in 2018, the singer and the rapper Young Lo were named in a suit alleging that a sexual assault had taken place at Brown's home in Los Angeles.
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