Editors’ note: This story contains accounts of sexual assault. If you or someone you know is a survivor of sexual assault, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or at https://www.rainn.org.
Deshaun Watson received an 11-game suspension and a $5 million fine Thursday after the NFL and its players union reached a settlement for the Browns quarterback regarding the 24 lawsuits he faced involving sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Ahead of the decision, it was reported that 23 of the 24 lawsuits were agreed upon to be settled. The one remaining unsettled lawsuit involves former massage therapist Lauren Baxley, who opened up about why she hasn’t settled with Watson in an article posted by The Daily Beast early Friday morning.
Baxley previously expressed that Watson “harassed and committed indecent assault” against her. In a statement made last April, she said Watson “clearly directed me away from a therapeutic glute massage to [his] anus” during a session the year before.
“Every boundary from professional and therapeutic to sexual and degrading you crossed or attempted to cross,” Baxley’s statement read. “You insisted that I not use my knuckles or forearms, but that I use my fingers for digital stimulation, which is an ethical violation of massage practice when working in the gluteal area.”
After Thursday’s decision, Watson did not directly apologize to any of the women involved in the lawsuits. Instead, he said “I apologize once again for any pain this situation has caused.” Because of the lack of a direct apology to the women involved, Baxley is not ready to settle her case.
“I have rejected all settlement offers, in part because they have not included any sincere acknowledgment of remorse and wrongdoings, nor have they included any promises of rehabilitative treatment,” Baxley wrote. “Watson still refuses to admit that he harassed and committed indecent assault against me. Any settlement offer he has made has been a dismissal of his evil actions, and I know that unless there is an authoritative intervention, he will continue his destructive behavior.”
This isn’t the first time Baxley has spoken out about her experience with her lawsuit. Back in March, she published a piece with The Daily Beast detailing the harassment she endured after the fallout of two grand jury hearings and after Watson signed a record $230 million contract with the Browns.
More than two dozen women provided detailed graphic accounts of sexual misconduct by Watson during massage therapy sessions back in 2020, when he still played in Houston. The accounts range from Watson refusing to cover his genitals to the quarterback “touching [a plaintiff] with his penis and trying to force her to perform oral sex on him.”
Watson has reportedly agreed to settle three of the remaining four lawsuits after 20 were settled in late June, per the Harris County District Clerk’s website. Those four remaining suits haven’t been officially settled, and Baxley is the only plaintiff who hasn’t agreed to settle with Watson.
Watson has denied wrongdoing, and two Texas grand juries declined to indict him on criminal charges this spring. He publicly apologized “to all the women that [he] impacted”—without admitting to any specific offenses—for the first time ahead of Cleveland’s preseason game against Jacksonville.
