Following the collapse of the criminal case against the rapper last week, his accuser has filed a lawsuit against him

The rapper Nelly has been sued for sexual assault and for defamation against the alleged victim, after he publicly denied the accusations.

He was arrested and briefly jailed in October in Auburn, Washington, after being accused of raping the 22-year-old University of Washington student on his tour bus. He denied the allegations via his attorney. The criminal case against him collapsed last week, after prosecutors said they couldn’t “proceed or fully assess the merits of the case” without the cooperation of the victim, who said she wanted to stop the investigation.

But after Nelly, who was born Cornell Haynes Jr, publicly accused the woman of fabricating the story, she decided to file the lawsuit against him. “She didn’t want to be a fighter at all,” said her lawyer, Karen Koehler. “She didn’t want anyone to know what happened to her … She honestly decided to stand up for herself after that last horrible post they made against her.”

Nelly’s lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, said the suit, which they plan to counter with a suit of their own, “comes as no surprise … We always believed her accusation was motivated by greed.”

In the early 00s, the rapper became one of the most successful in the US, with his first three albums – Country Grammar, Nellyville and the double release Sweat and Suit – all reaching the top of the Billboard chart. He has only released a couple of singles since his last album in 2013, but continues to perform live, with a Canadian tour planned for March.