Backstreet Boy member Nick Carter has been accused by former pop singer Melissa Schuman of raping her 15 years ago.
Schuman shared the allegations in a detailed blog post earlier this month and tweeted a link to her story this week. In the post, Schuman wrote of an incident she said occurred when she was an 18-year-old member of the girl group Dream and Carter was 22.
According to Schuman, she and Carter were working together on a TV movie when he invited her and a friend to hang out at his Santa Monica apartment.
She alleges that after Carter took her into his office to listen to some music he was working on, they began kissing and he led her into a bathroom.
Schuman wrote that Carter performed oral sex on her, despite her refusals, and forced her to perform it on him.
She said she felt “scared and trapped.”
“He was stronger and much bigger than me, and there was no way I would be able to open that door or have anyone help me,” Schuman wrote. “My friend couldn’t help me, I didn’t even know where she was.”
After the bathroom incident, Schuman wrote, Carter took her into a bedroom and despite her pleas that she was a virgin and saving herself for marriage, raped her.
She said the singer tried to entice her by saying “I could be your husband.”
“The one thing I had held as a virtue had been ruined,” Schuman wrote of her feelings after the alleged incident. “I went limp, turned my head to my left and decided I would just go to sleep now. I wanted to believe it was some sort of nightmare I was dreaming up.”
Carter denied the allegations in a statement provided to CNN.
He said he was “shocked and saddened by Ms. Schuman’s accusations.”
“Melissa never expressed to me while we were together or at any time since that anything we did was not consensual,” Carter said in the statement. “We went on to record a song and perform together, and I was always respectful and supportive of Melissa both personally and professionally.”
“This is the first that I am hearing about these accusations, nearly two decades later,” he added. “It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm.”
Schuman addressed the duet in her blog post, writing that she wondered if Carter’s influence was the reason things never moved forward with the song.
Schuman added that her experience with Carter left her “traumatized,” and she lost interest in pursuing a recording career.
CNN has reached out to Schuman for additional comment.
