Justin Bieber files £16m defamation lawsuit over ‘factually impossible’ sexual assault allegations

Lawsuit describes claims made on Twitter as an ‘elaborate hoax’

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Justin Bieber has launched a $20m (£16.2m) defamation lawsuit against two people after they accused him of sexual assault on social media.

The 26-year-old pop star denied the accusations that he sexually assaulted two women in 2014 and 2015, calling the alleged encounters “factually impossible”.

The first allegation was by a woman who is listed in the lawsuit as Jane Doe-2 and identified as “Kadi” on Twitter. She claims that Bieber assaulted her in the early hours of 5 May 2015 at the Langham Hotel in New York City.

The other accusation claimed that Bieber sexually assaulted a fan at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Texas, on 9 March 2014.

Bieber says he did not stay at the Four Seasons on the date cited in the allegation, and provided screenshots from news stories that showed him on that day with his then-girlfriend, the singer Selena Gomez.

The singer, who is married to model Hailey Baldwin, issued an initial statement that said sexual abuse was “something I don’t take lightly”.

“I wanted to speak out right away but out of respect to so many victims who deal with these issues daily I wanted to make sure I gathered the facts before I made any statement,” he said.

CNN reports that the lawsuit by Bieber describes the claims as an “elaborate hoax” and describes the accusers as being motivated by a “desire for fame and attention”.

It says that both allegations can be refuted by “indisputable documentary evidence and the individuals' own admissions”.

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Bieber’s lawyers suggested that the “malicious statements” could have been made by the same person from two different Twitter accounts.