Axl Rose Wins Sexual Assault Lawsuit: Claims His Innocence in Shocking Settlement

Rolling Stone has learnt of a confidential settlement between Axl Rose and the former model who filed a sexual assault lawsuit against him last year. Rose insisted in a statement that he did not, as plaintiff Sheila Kennedy claimed, rape and assault her in a hotel room in Manhattan in 1989.

“I refute the accusations, as I have done from the start. The leader of Guns N’ Roses tells Rolling Stone, “There was no assault.” The secret agreement’s conditions were not made public.

In a second statement, Rose’s attorney, E. Danya Perry, stated, “Mr. Rose has suffered greatly from this lawsuit, and I am pleased that he will now be able to move on with his life.”

End of lawsuit with prejudice

The parties agreed to end the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it cannot be reopened, according to documents they just filed in New York. According to the document that Rolling Stone was able to get, they also committed to pay their own legal fees.

Reaching Kennedy and her attorney did not immediately work. Kennedy filed a complaint under New York’s Adult Survivors Act last November, one day before the deadline for filing claims that would have otherwise expired. She alleged that Rose had raped her in February 1989 after they had met at a nightclub.

A model and actress who won “Pet of the Year” from Penthouse magazine in 1983.

Kennedy claimed she ended up in Rose’s opulent hotel suite on Central Park West shortly after she made four appearances on the publication’s cover because he was throwing an after-party there.

According to the lawsuit, Rose “pushed Kennedy against the wall and kissed her” in the hotel room, characterizing the first exchange as consensual. According to the lawsuit, Kennedy did not mind Rose’s appearance. “If things worked out, she was willing to sleep with him.”

When Rose allegedly became “aggressive,” the situation allegedly took an undesirable turn. Kennedy said he assaulted her, shoved her down, and pulled her by her hair across the apartment. According to the lawsuit, “Rose made no attempt to ask for or check that Kennedy was consenting.”

Rose, 62, has previously been accused of sexual and domestic assault. Kennedy’s complaint cited allegations made by Rose’s ex-partners Stephanie Seymour and Erin Everly, which were covered in a People magazine article from 1994.

That year, Everly filed a civil lawsuit against Rose for abuse in Los Angeles, and the two parties eventually reached an out-of-court settlement. Kennedy’s 2016 autobiography, No One’s Pet, contained the first details of her accusations against Rose. In the 2021 documentary on sexual misconduct in the music industry, Look Away, she provided their voice once more.