Garth Brooks Created a Separate Character to Explore Other Kinds of Music

As one of the most successful country artists in history, Garth Brooks has, at least for most of his career, been a fairly straightforward musician. He releases new music, but that new music is not usually a radical reinvention or departure from what he had done in the past.

There's one important exception that story, though. In 1999, Garth released an entire album under a pseudonym. Naturally, many want to better understand what drove Garth to make that unorthodox move, and why he decided to make an album as Chris Gaines.

In 1999, Garth released "Garth Brooks in....the Life of Chris Gaines," an album in which he assumed another persona. The album was a solid mainstream success, but given that it's somewhat unusual to release an album under the name of a character, many wanted to know what drove Garth to take this step.

As it turns out, the character of Chris Gaines was originally developed for a movie called The Lamb that never materialized.

In the film, Garth would have played a rock star who was struggling with his life in the public eye. Garth released the album in advance of when the movie was supposed to be released, and it was designed as a pre-soundtrack for the film. The album was supposed to represent Chris's greatest hits from his entire body of work, which was supposed to span several decades. Garth came up with the backstory for Chris himself, but didn't write any of the songs on the album.

To promote the album, Garth appeared in a parody of VH1's Behind the Music as Chris, and he also performed as Chris on an episode of Saturday Night Live that he hosted as himself.

In spite of a lukewarm critical reception, "The Life of Chris Gaines" earned Garth the only Billboard Hot 100 of his career to date, which was partially because Garth had refused to have his songs appear on the chart prior to that point.

Garth's alter ego was a fairly innocent creative decision, but In October of 2024, much more serious allegations were made against the country singer. In a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims she worked in hair and make-up for him, an anonymous woman claims that Brooks raped her in 2019 in a hotel room.

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles superior court, and the woman, identified as Jane Roe, claims that the assault happened when she was traveling from Nashville to Los Angeles with the singer so that he could perform at the Grammys. She also said that she had worked for Brooks's wife, Trisha Yearwood, since 1999, and had started working for Garth in 2017.

Brooks filed his own lawsuit last month, according to a statement, claiming that the plaintiff was extorting and defaming him.

"For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars," the statement said.