On Tuesday, actress and former “DREAM” singer Melissa Schuman, publicly accused Nick Carter, a fellow pop star and “Backstreet Boy,” of raping her when she was an 18-year-old virgin.
Schuman, now 33, wrote a blog post describing the alleged encounter in explicit detail.
After speaking on the phone to Carter once before, she and the pop star were reunited on the set of a made-for-television movie in 2004, when Schuman said Carter invited her to his place for a “casual hangout.”
“My first impression of him, he was kind and charismatic so when he asked if I’d like to hang out with him and his friend at his Santa Monica apartment on our off day of shooting, I said yes. I invited my roommate to come with me,” she recalled.
Carter, 22 at the time, “provided liquor for the get together,” said Schuman. After taking a shot together, Schuman followed Carter to his computer room to listen to some of his new music.
“And naturally we started to kiss,” she said. “He was aware that I was a virgin and that I held to religious conservative [C]hristian values. I was vocal about this. Everyone knew about this, including those who repped me.”
The two ended up in a bathroom together, where Carter allegedly performed oral sex on Shuman against her will.
“After kissing for a moment, he took my hand and brought me into the bathroom adjacent to his office,” wrote Schuman.
“He then pick[ed] me up, put me on the bathroom counter and started to unbutton my pants. I told him I didn’t want to go any further.”
“He didn’t listen,” she said.
“He told me, ‘don’t worry. I won’t tell anybody.'”
“He took off my pants anyway and then proceeded to perform oral sex on me. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. So I turned off the bathroom light so I wouldn’t see anything. He kept turning the light back on because he told me he wanted to look at me. I remember thinking at that point that maybe after this he will just stop, but he didn’t,” she wrote.
Carter then removed his pants and asked her to perform oral sex on him in return.
He then took off his pants. I will never forget this moment. There was a bathroom nightlight so although it was dark, it was dimly lit enough for me to see myself in the bathroom mirror. He sat himself on the bathroom counter and asked me to perform oral sex on him. I declined, he was upset. He told me,
“I did it for you and it’s only right you do it for me.”
Schuman said she felt “scared and trapped.”
“He was visually and clearly growing very angry and impatient with me,” she said. “I couldn’t leave. It was evident to me, that [I] couldn’t leave. 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.”
Carter then “placed my hand on his penis my thought was the only way to get out was to get him to finish what he had started,” she recalled. “That’s where I saw myself, my reflection, watching myself do something that I was sicken[ed] by. Watching myself be assaulted, forced to engage in an act against my will.”
It didn’t stop there, Schuman writes, Carter then took her into his room and vaginally raped her:
He threw me on the bed and climbed on top of me. Again, I told him that I was a virgin and I didn’t want to have sex. I told him that I was saving myself for my future husband. I said it over and over again. He whispered in my ear as to entice me,
“I could be your husband.”
He was relentless, refusing to take my no’s for an answer. He was heavy, too heavy to get out from under him. Then I felt it, he put something inside of me. I asked him what it was and he whispered in my ear once more,
“it’s all me baby.”
“It was done,” recalled Schuman. “The one thing I had held as a virtue had been ruined. 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.”
Shuman said she soon “lost interest in pursuing a career as a recording artist.”
“I was broken,” she wrote, “tired” and “traumatized.”
Schuman said she told her therapist, family, and friends, but “never had the platform to come out publicly.”
But, now, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, things are different, she said. “I did however promise that if another victim ever came forward I would then feel the responsibility to show my support by sharing my story.”
“I feel I have an obligation now to come forward with the hope and intention to inspire and encourage other victims to tell their story. We are stronger in numbers. If you are reading this and you have been assaulted, know you don’t have to be silent and you are not alone. I know it’s scary. I’m scared,” wrote Schuman.
UPDATE: Mr. Carter has since denied the claim, releasing the following statement to The Huffington Post:
“I am 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,” the statement reads. “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. It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm.”