Portugese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo took to Twitter on Wednesday, to deny allegations of rape levied against him. He is accused of rape by Kathryn Mayorga, who is seeking monetary damages from him.

Mayorga alleges Ronaldo raped her in Las Vegas, NV, in 2009. She filed a civil lawsuit in Nevada last week with her lawyer Larissa Drohobyczer.

Ronaldo wrote: “I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in. Keen as I may be to clear my name, I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense.”

The Associated Press wrote:

The civil lawsuit filed in state court in Las Vegas alleges Ronaldo raped Mayorga, who was then 24, in his penthouse suite at a Las Vegas hotel and hired a team of what the document called “fixers” to shape the monetary settlement, obstruct a police criminal investigation and trick Mayorga into taking $375,000 US to keep quiet.

…

Mayorga met Ronaldo at a nightclub, according to the lawsuit, and went with him and other people to his suite, where the alleged attack took place in a bedroom. … The lawsuit said Mayorga also went to a hospital, where a sexual assault medical examination was conducted.

However, Mayorga refused to tell police the location of the alleged attack or to identify a suspect other than to say he was a European soccer player, Ocampo Gomez said.

Mayorga said she was paid $375,000 by Ronaldo to settle her claims in an out-of-court agreement which included her signing of a nondisclosure agreement.

Ronaldo described the allegations as “fake news” during a live Instagram video broadcast hours after the lawsuit’s filing.
“No, no, no, no, no – what they said today [is] fake, fake news,” said Ronaldo. ” “They wanna promote by my name, it’s normal. … They wanna be famous to say my name, yeah, but it’s part of the job. … I’m a happy man and all good.”

Ronaldo has a range of contracts with various companies whose products he promotes. Forbes reported his deal with Nike to be valued at over $1 billion:

Ronaldo’s lifetime Nike contract is worth upward of $1 billion. He has an array of other deals including Herbalife, EA Sports and American Tourister, along with a growing line of CR7 branded products including shoes, underwear, fragrance, jeans, a children’s line (for which he models with his son), a line of hotels and soon-to-open restaurants in Brazil. He remains the most popular athlete in the world with 322 million social media followers.

Sports Illustrated cited an estimate of Ronaldo’s net worth being over $400 million in late 2017

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