The leader of the popular indie-rock group Bright Eyes slapped a North Carolina woman with a $1 million lawsuit Wednesday, claiming she ruined his good-guy image by wrongfully accusing him in anonymous Internet postings of raping her a decade ago when she was 16.
Conor Oberst filed the defamation suit in Manhattan federal court, naming his alleged accuser as “Joanie Faircloth” and claiming “she’s a pathological liar with a well-documented history of spinning tales and fabricating sexually themed stories about others to benefit herself.”
Oberst, 34, cites comments posted on the Web site xojane.com in December in which Faircloth, now in her mid-20s, allegedly made bogus anonymous accusations about being raped by Oberst at a Bright Eyes Concert. He says he never met Faircloth, adding that she “should be ashamed of herself.”
The woman could not be reached for comment.