Cristiano Ronaldo denied an accusation by a woman who claimed the soccer superstar raped her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009, calling it "fake news," the BBC reported.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Clark County, Nevada, Kathryn Mayorga, 34, said Ronaldo, who plays for the the Italian club Juventus, raped her while she repeatedly screamed "no," CNN reported.
In an Instagram video, Ronaldo, 33, said: "They want to promote (themselves) by (using) my name. It's normal," the BBC reported.
Ronaldo's lawyers said they would sue the German magazine Der Spiegel for publishing "blatantly illegal" accusations, ESPN reported.
"(The report) violates the personal rights of our client Cristiano Ronaldo in an exceptionally serious way," according to a statement by Ronaldo's lawyer, Christian Schertz. "This is an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy. It would therefore already be unlawful to reproduce this reporting."
According to the lawsuit, Ronaldo apologized after the alleged incident that occurred on June 13, 2009, "stating he was sorry, he was usually a gentleman," CNN reported. The lawsuit alleges that Ronaldo told his representatives that "she said 'no' and 'stop' several times."
In 2010, Mayorga reportedly reached an out-of-court settlement with Ronaldo involving a $375,000 payment in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement, the BBC reported. Her lawyers now want to declare the agreement void.
Mayorga's attorney declined to comment, CNN reported.
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